Circadian Community🏘

🌟 Rhythmicity is a group effort.

Stabilizing circadian rhythms requires creating a circadian environment.

For this, you may need negotiation skills. Consider the following scenarios:

• someone with significant investment in a career that requires nightshift

• someone with a disability whose caregiver knows nothing about circadian living

• someone with a spouse who falls asleep in front of "the game" or "the news" every night

To transform their living or working space into a more circadian environment, each of these people is going to have to negotiate.

The Necessity of Circadian Community Support

Depending on where they live, a person may even need to organize their community as a whole (not just their immediate social sphere). As an example, take a look at this complex before:

And after:

This isn't something that happens by accident. This happens through meaningful communication and consensus. Compared with the complexity of negotiation, the scientific details of circadian living are simple. Here's how to sum up a circadian environment up in one sentence:

Circadian nights are cooler, darker, redder, and quieter than days.

See? Easy.

But where can you start with soliciting cooperation?

Tips for Introducing People to the Circadian Lifestyle

Here is what I have found helpful so far:

1. Don't rush commitment. Many people are open to an "experiment" to see if they feel any different. Gift them some sleep lights and teach them how to red-shift their phones and tablets at night. Follow up to see how they feel after a day or two. This is much easier to face than an all-out change.

2. Acknowledge differences. Some people are more sensitive to disruption than others. In fact, we know sensitivity to light at night can vary by 50-fold among healthy individuals¹! When you factor age and health conditions in, the differences may be even greater. So if someone insists evening light doesn't affect them, let them have it. That doesn’t mean that same light doesn’t affect other people (and animals).

3. Don't criticize. Criticizing leads to defensiveness. Rather than pointing at lifestyle problems, keep conversations focused on personal experiments and the opportunities for improved wellbeing.

4. Loop in colleagues. For those who face circadian disruption at work, a group effort may be the best hope of change. Many of our most important professions must operate around the clock². I recommend the Navy's research for these teams. According to their research, it takes 4-6 people to cover each 24-hour shift³.

5. Loop in experts. Recommend presenting circadian research to their medical providers rather than their peers. A neutral 3rd party, especially one with credentials, can make recommendations with authority.

   • Anyone who takes prescription drugs needs to talk with their doctor and pharmacist before tweaking their daytime environment. Hundreds of drugs and skincare products increase photosensitivity⁴—everyone should check with their pharmacist. This includes if someone has taken pharmies in the past, as the sensitivity can last for weeks after use. More than 500 drugs also have known optimal times of day for use. This information is discussed in medical circles as chronotherapeutics⁵. Unless the patient asks, this information isn't always prioritized.

   • Anyone with a diagnosed medical or psychological condition needs to ask about chronotherapies. These will give the medical caregiver official circadian frameworks to work with. Chronotherapies exist for many illnesses, and more are coming out all the time! Asking about these therapies can even help docs/therapists save face—also important! Some professionals don’t like it when patients bring them information they haven’t heard before.

   • Anyone who adores skincare products or perfumes should work with a dermatologist. Many ingredients, including natural ones such as certain essential oils, can be phototoxic. Even certain sunscreen ingredients can increase sensitivity to sunlight!

You have noticed that these medical warnings are about increased light exposure. However, my simple circadian sentence doesn't give a whole lot of info about days.

Here it is again:

Nights are cooler, darker, redder, and quieter than days.

Circadian-effective Days

So what's the deal with days? If you follow other teachers, you may have noticed they are all about sunrise, sunrise, sunrise! Everyone talks about the need for more daylight. This is really a big deal! To give you an idea, check out this graphic:

As you can see, we tend to have have much less variation in our light environment than we did in the past. To get the circadian cues we need, we need more brightness as well as more darkness. Experts suggest we may need brightness on the scale of 1,000x what we currently get⁶.

So why have I left this out so far? As far as I have read, there are no risks to darkening nights. Enforced darkness may in itself be a remedy for many maladies⁷.

Risks of Changes to Daytime Light Exposure

Brightening days may cause problems for anyone who uses modern medicine/products. The majority of sun problems happen to indoor-people who too-suddenly increase exposure. It can trigger manic episodes in those with bipolar disorder. Skin problems may occur for those taking drugs that increase photosensitivity. Heat-stroke is another acute risk to avoid.

On a more universal note, I have found the lifestyle is easier if we treat the day as starting at sunset.

Think about how the tone of the day is set by the quality of sleep we got "the night before." With the day starting at sunset, the first "circadian task" is turning on nightlights. No matter what kind of day a person has had, they can probably manage the nightlights. I can't promise the same about a dawn alarm.

Why People Love to Talk About Circadian-effective Days

But when it comes to negotiating with people who you need on your team, daytime may be a better place to start. This is because as a society we generally acknowledge we should spend more time outside. The benefits on mood and wellbeing are easy to feel, and it is free.

Since it is not practical for most people to spend all day outside, we instead brighten up our homes and workplaces. Remodeling for circadian wellbeing can be a relatively low-pressure area of focus. The architectural term for bringing the daylight indoors is daylighting. Rearranging can feel less threatening than changing to lights and schedules. For example, you can get more light inside by:

• opening the blinds

• moving furniture, desks and workstations closer to the windows

• painting walls and ceilings neutral tones like white and grey

• removing external objects that block light from getting in the windows

These are changes people can make without even mentioning circadian rhythms. And since modern glass blocks UV penetration, there are fewer risks for the medicated. But what if the person you are trying to help lives in a situation like this?

What if a person lives near a large freeway or busy airport⁸?

What if they live in a care facility without access to southern or eastern facing windows?

Circadian Locations

In these cases, a person may consider moving if they want to live free of circadian disruption. This would be a BIG negotiation. But for folks who like to solve problems with money (and there may be more than you would think), this could be a big win. New remote work arrangements are already fueling a move from city to country. The circadian gains of a remote lifestyle may be the final reason to make the leap they have already been considering!

Circadian-effective Architecture

Soon I will share what we know about designing new circadian-effective buildings from the ground up. What better way to dive into a new lifestyle than in a custom-built country home!? For a quick summary, know that circadian-effective design is about much more than fancy LED choices⁹! In fact, the experts warn:

[L]ighting products claiming to be effective in improving peoples’ performance, alertness, and sleep should be met with skepticism. Human-Centric-Lighting (HCL) is not a product feature and is not only about buying products labeled as “integrative or human-centric lighting”. For example, some lighting products tagged as HCL deliver more light in the short-wavelength part of the spectrum. These products might support the circadian rhythms of space users during the day, but they could lead to circadian disruption if viewed at night. Hence, lighting products are only one part of the HCL design approach, and they need to be employed in the right way.

-Alkhatatbeh, B. and Asadi, S. (2021)

But as the poet James Russell Lowell said, "One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning."

Attitude Matters

At the end of the day, a person can only change as far as they are willing to consider new perspectives. I have found an attitude of shared learning and experimentation is least offensive. This helps avoid the problem of asking people to admit they were wrong/ignorant in the past.

I hope this is helpful as you embark on your own journey of circadian living and wisdom sharing!

For more support, you may also want to look into:

• "dark sky" organizations

• wildlife groups that champion animals affected by city lights (incl. migratory birds and sea turtles)

• the human-centric-lighting movement

Look out for my future emails about choosing locations and designing spaces! And as always, the citations at the end of this post contain full-text links for deeper reading.

Best,

Nikko

P.S. In case you missed it, last month I published a deeper dive into helping the individual. That post can be read as either a prequel or a follow-up to this post. Here’s the link:

👉Start Here

1. Cain, S., McGlashan, E., Vidafar, P., et al. (2020). Evening home lighting adversely impacts the circadian system and sleep. Nature Research Scientific Reports, 10, 19110.

2. Lunn, R., Schwingl, P., Atwood, S., etal. (2021). Night Shift Work and Light at Night and Cancer. National Toxicology Program: Public Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

3. Naval Postgraduate School. (2017). Crew Endurance Handbook: A Guide to Applying Circadian-Based Watchbills. Center for Educational Design, Development, and Distribution (CED3).

4. Levine, J. (1990). Medications that Increase Sensitivity to Light: A 1990 Listing. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: HHS Publications.

5. Ballesta, A., Innominato, P., Dallmann, R., et al. (2017). Systems Chronotherapeutics. Pharmacological Reviews, 69:161–199.

6. Mead, M. (2008).Benefits of Sunlight: A Bright Spot for Human Health. Environmental Health Perspectives, 116, 161-167.

7. Walker, W., Walton, J., DeVries, C, Nelson, R. (2020). Circadian rhythm disruption and mental health. Translational Psychiatry, 10:28.

8. Münzel, T., Kröller-Schön, S., Oelze, M., et al (2020). Adverse Cardiovascular Effects of Traffic Noise with a Focus on Nighttime Noise and the New WHO Noise Guidelines. Annual Review of Public Health, 41:309–28.

9. Alkhatatbeh, B., Asadi, S. (2021). Role of Architectural Design in Creating Circadian-Effective Interior Settings. Energies, 14, 6731.