Light environment suitable for our daily activities

在所有心理生理功能中观察到的昼夜节律是由位于下丘脑视交叉上核(SCN)的昼夜节律时钟产生的。从本质上讲，SCN的振荡时间略长于24小时，但通常情况下，每隔24小时重复暴露一次强光会牵涉到内源性周期。然而，最近，年轻人已经养成了不规律的睡眠-唤醒习惯，这打乱了光明-黑暗的循环。此外，患有心理生理障碍的人数正在增加。因此，我们旨在阐明习惯性睡眠-觉醒习惯与日间心理生理状态之间的关系。结果表明，当睡眠-觉醒节律的不规则性超过3-4小时时，白天的心理生理功能会恶化。规则睡眠-觉醒节律6天后，患者的心理生理功能恢复正常。本研究结果提示，睡眠-觉醒时间的规律化可以以一种更适应白天活动的方式来调节白天的心理生理功能。

Circadian rhythms observed in all psychophysiological functions are produced by the circadian clock located in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the hypothalamus. Intrinsically, the SCN oscillates with slightly longer than 24 hr, but generally, repeated bright light exposures at 24-hr intervals entrain the endogenous period. However, recently, irregular sleep-wake habits have been established among young people, which have disrupted the light-dark cycle. Furthermore, the number of people who are suffering from psychophysiological disorder is increasing. Therefore, we aimed at clarifying relations between the habitual sleep-wake habits and daytime psychophysiological states. In results, we demonstrated that daytime psychophysiological functions were deteriorated when the irregularity of sleep-wake rhythm was exceeded more than 3-4 hours. However, the deteriorated psychophysiological functions were recovered when irregular sleep-wake rhythm was regularized for 6 days. The present findings suggested that the regularization of sleep-wake schedule could modulate the daytime psychophysiological functions in such a way as is more adaptive to the daytime activity.