Are humans solar powered?
A brief answer whether or not there is connection between the sun and us humans.
The short answer to this question is yes, but probably not the way you would expect it! In order to understand this we have to take a close look inside of our body and see what’s happening there when the sun sets.
When the sun sets
First we need to know, how our body senses darkness… any guesses? Well it’s not that difficult. Our Body mainly sense darkness through their eyes. Then the eyes communicate to our suprachiasmatic nucleus (an area in our Brain) that it’s dark. Afterwards a hormone called melatonin is being released into our bloodstream from the pineal gland (interface between brain and bloodstream).
Now let’s take a closer look on what’s happening in your body when you’re sleeping. Through sleeping the concentration of melatonin slowly decreases. However with dawn, as sunlight enters the brain through the eyes (even through closed lids), a break is being initiated to the pineal gland, therefore shutting of the release of melatonin.
Melatonin’s role
By now you briefly know that melatonin plays some role in your sleep. Therefore to get a better understanding I am going to compare your sleep to a 100 meter sprint at the olympics. It might sounds odd at first, but let me tell you it will turn out to be one of the best comparisons.
So Imagine you participating in the 100 meter sprint. What’s the first official step you have to do in order to be ready to sprint? Well you have to get on your mark. This is what melatonin really does, it simply sets you „on your mark“ for sleep and therefore does not participate in the sleep itself.
So the next time you see an ad for a aid, which claims to give you the best sleep you could have ever asked for, you know what to look for and also know that when there is just a high does of melatonin it doesn’t generate a better sleep.
To come back to the question whether or not humans are solar powered, we now can say that we get our energy from the sun. So in my eyes we, humans, are solar powered!
Please note that I am not a professional at this topic and you‘re responsible for what you do with your knowledge. if you want to learn more about sleep, I recommend you to read the book „Why we sleep“ by Matthew Walker. There you get a much more detailed walkthrough in every single topic, concerning sleep.
Thank you so much for reading my very first blog and I hope you got just a little bit of information out of this blog. So just keep that in mind that I’m completely new to this whole wringing stuff.
