Researchers say wearing an eye mask to bed can make you feel more awake the next morning.
According to scientists who tested the theory, simply blocking out light, whether it’s from street lights, electronics or sunlight, helps prevent dizziness.
Study author Viviana Greco describes it as an “effective and cost-effective solution.”
Sufficient sleep is essential for the functioning of our brain and body. But one thing that disrupts that all-important sleep is ambient light. Because the nocturnal sleep-wake cycle is regulated by daylight and darkness. The morning sunlight signals our body to wake up and the darkness tells us to go to sleep
To find out if wearing an eye mask makes a difference, experts from Cardiff University carried out two similar experiments.
The first involved 89 participants, aged 18 to 35, who wore an eye mask while they slept every night for a week.
A second week they went to bed without it.
The volunteers were asked to sleep in their own homes and stick to their normal bedtime to avoid biasing the study.
It was performed in the summer because mrs. Greco and her teamthought the eye mask would be more useful if the dawn came earlier.
On the mornings of days six and seven, participants were asked to complete three different tests to measure their brain power.
The results showed that participants performed better on a word pair association task during the masking week.
They also had slightly better response times of about 10 milliseconds.
Yet the masks had no real effect on the third test, which required them to type a string with their hand and press keys on a computer keyboard as quickly as possible.
In a second experiment, 35 people aged 18 to 35 wore a device that recorded their sleep.
They were also asked to place a light meter on their pillows so that Ms. Greco and her team could record light levels when participants woke up.
Participants spent two nights with one mask and the other two with a cut-out mask – so it didn’t block any light.
However, according to the results published in the journal Sleep, sleep diaries showed no differences in hours of sleep or self-rated quality between wearing a mask or not.
Ms Greco, a PhD student, told PsyPost: “Our results speak of improved reaction times and improved memory.
“The implications of our results are relevant to many everyday tasks, such as driving a car or any educational or cultural context that requires learning.”
The researchers say their findings may be due to higher slow wave activity in the brain when wearing a mask.
Although the team was unable to capture slow wave sleep, it is known to restore the brain’s ability to encode information.
Studies suggest that this sleep phase – which accounts for up to a fifth of sleep time – restores connections between brain cells that can be overwhelmed when we’re awake.
Experts believe that this process facilitates learning.
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Crystal Leahy is an author and health journalist who writes for The Fashion Vibes. With a background in health and wellness, Crystal has a passion for helping people live their best lives through healthy habits and lifestyles.
