Brushing your teeth in the dark could be the key to a better night’s sleep

Here’s what the end of the day looks like for most people: directly before curling up in bed to catch some shut-eye, you brush your teeth in front of your bathroom mirror, and given that it’s night-time, you’re probably basking in the bright, artificial ambience of your bathroom’s electric lights.

According to science, we shouldn’t be doing this. By exposing yourself to bright artificial lighting just before you go to bed, you’re effectively telling your body it’s time to wake up rather than time to relax.

“Sleep is the single most important behaviour that we do. Across our lifespans 36 percent of our life will be spent sleeping," said Russell Foster, professor of circadian neuroscience at Oxford University in the UK.

“Often people will turn their lights down at night which helps to get the body ready for sleep, but then they will go and brush their teeth and turn their bathroom light on. That is very disrupting. I often think someone should invent a bathroom mirror light which has a different setting for night-time.”

According to Foster, we confuse our bodies, especially in winter when the days are shorter, due to our overall reliance on electric lights. Our bodies’ natural expectations are to be surrounded by very bright daylight in the middle of the day, then shrouded in relative darkness during the night.

However, as we live and work primarily inside buildings with artificial lighting running throughout both day and night, the light we’re exposed to at all times is rather less than ideal: dimmer during the day than sunlight, and brighter at night than darkness. One consequence is a negative impact on sleep.

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