One more study supporting several of my hypothesis. Why Surya Namaskar in open air during sunrise or before sun rise ? Why Homa?  Why Sandhya? Why meditation in low light and no artificial light? List goes on. All depends upon light. Monochromatic light vs polychromatic light. Natural light vs artificial light. Visible light and the invisible ones. I already wrote two notes on negative impact of LED.

Issue is, we have become so numb in our fast life that, we don’t sense the interplay of पञ्च-महाभूत ! Not even life-degenerative impact!

University Of Oxford Study

Lighting colour affects sleep and wakefulness

A research team from Oxford University have shown how different colours of light could affect our ability to sleep.

The team exposed mice to three different colours of light – violet, blue and green. Based on the existing data about the role of melanopsin in sleep, they expected that the blue light would induce sleep fastest as the wavelength of the blue light (470 nanometres – nm) was closest to the peak sensitivity of the pigment (around 480nm).

However, it was green light that produced rapid sleep onset – between 1 and 3 minutes. Blue and violet light delayed sleep – the onset of sleep taking between 16 and 19 minutes for blue and between 5 and 10 minutes for violet.

Dr Peirson said: ‘The results meant that mice exposed to blue light had less sleep than those exposed to violet and green light. We confirmed the effect by testing mice using green and blue light at a time when they would usually be less active.’

To investigate the role of melanopsin, the team performed the same test on mice lacking the pigment. For these mice, the colours had opposite effects – blue caused rapid sleep onset, while green and violet significantly delayed sleep, showing that melanopsin is necessary for the substantial wavelength-dependent effects of light on sleep.

The researchers also found that while exposure to all three colours of light increased the level of corticosterone stress hormone in ordinary mice, blue light caused a much higher rise. In mice without melanopsin, the response to blue light was greatly reduced. Blocking the effect of corticosterone reduced the sleep-delaying effect, suggesting that the production of this hormone in response to light actively inhibits sleep.

Dr Peirson said: ‘This study shows that there are different pathways from the eye to the brain – one directly regulating sleep and the other increasing arousal. Melanopsin has a more complex role than previously thought, affecting both pathways. This is the first time that it has been shown to regulate adrenal stress responses.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2016-06-09-lighting-colour-affects-sleep-and-wakefulness

http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002482