Lack L, Wright H
Sleep Laboratory, Flinders University of South Australia, Adelaide.
Sleep. 1993 Aug;16(5):436-43. doi: 10.1093/sleep/16.5.436.
Past studies have predicted that early morning awakening insomnia is associated with advanced or early circadian rhythms. Because bright light stimulation in the evening can delay the phase of circadian rhythms, we tested its effects on nine (4 females, 5 males) early morning awakening insomniacs. Their sleep was evaluated with wrist actigraphy and their temperature and melatonin circadian rhythms were measured in constant routine procedures. In the initial evaluation, the temperature rhythm phase positions of these insomniacs did appear to be earlier than normal. The subjects were then exposed to bright light stimulation (2,500 lux) from 2000 to 2400 hours on two consecutive evenings. Following the evening bright light treatment, temperature rhythm phase markers were delayed 2-4 hours and melatonin phase markers were delayed 1-2 hours. Sleep onset times were not changed but the mean final wake-up time was delayed from 0459 hours to 0611 hours, resulting in a mean increase of total sleep time of > 1 hour. This pilot study suggests that evening bright light stimulation may be an effective nondrug treatment for early morning awakening insomnia.
过去的研究预测，早醒性失眠与昼夜节律提前或过早有关。由于傍晚的强光刺激可延迟昼夜节律的相位，我们测试了其对9名（4名女性，5名男性）早醒性失眠患者的影响。通过手腕活动记录仪评估他们的睡眠情况，并在固定程序中测量他们的体温和褪黑素昼夜节律。在初始评估中，这些失眠患者的体温节律相位位置确实似乎比正常情况更早。然后，让受试者在连续两个晚上的20:00至24:00暴露于强光刺激（2500勒克斯）下。经过傍晚的强光治疗后，体温节律相位标记延迟了2 - 4小时，褪黑素相位标记延迟了1 - 2小时。入睡时间没有改变，但平均最终醒来时间从04:59延迟到了06:11，导致总睡眠时间平均增加超过1小时。这项初步研究表明，傍晚强光刺激可能是一种治疗早醒性失眠的有效非药物疗法。
