According to a new study, sitting in front of a computer or TV screen late into the night might be increasing your chances of becoming depressed.
Really? We’d expect those things might be a symptom depression, not the cause. What happened to staying up because you like it, or you’re a night owl??
The researchers did some stuff to hamsters and that’s how they came to this conclusion.
This is what they did:
They exposed hamsters to dim light at night and picked up changes in behaviour and the brain that bore striking similarities to symptoms in depressed people – a surge in exposure to artificial light at night in the last 50 years had coincided with rising rates of depression, particularly among women, who are twice as prone as men.
Wow, that’s an interesting theory, the thing about artificial lights!
The results of the hamsters who slept with the dull glow of light showed they were less active and had a lower than usual interest in drinking sugar water – both symptoms are apparently comparable to signs of depression in people, somehow.
Anyway, this extended to their biological make-up too: they found changes in the hippocampus that were consistent with people suffering depression.
All is not lost, though:
“The good news is that people who stay up late in front of the television and computer may be able to undo some of the harmful effects just by going back to a regular light-dark cycle and minimizing their exposure to artificial light at night.”
Boom.
Go to bed like a normal person!
LOLz!
[Image via AP Images.]