Darkness My Friendly Companion

The dark-side has always been synonymous with shadows, depression, creepy crawlies that come out at night, vampires, devils and all things evil. Recently, I have come to see this darkness as a friend and not as a foe. There is goodness, life and brightness that comes at the end of the spectrum of darkness.

Traditional Chinese Medicine talks about balance, the yin and the yang. They are just spectrums or opposite poles of the same thing. When things are in balance, we have harmony and health. When we do not go through this cycle from light to dark and from dark to light, then our health can be compromised. Activity and wakefulness is the yang, sleep and rest is the yin. But most of us don't realize that the amount of time that we spend in the yin aspect of our life is getting less and less.

For instance, before the invention of the light bulb, most people would go to bed when the sun goes down and get up when the sun rises. This is the way things should be, but of course in our whirl wind-like world, things are never what nature intends it to be. How many of us sleep in a room where something gives off light, such as a clock radio or alarm clock or even sleep with the television still on or have street lights or signs illuminating our sleeping quarters? The importance of replenishing that yin aspect of our life is crucial for good health. Good quality sleep in the darkness. So what happens in the complete dark? A very important biological substance is produced by a our pineal gland in our brain - melatonin.

Melatonin has been shown to be reduced with even small amounts of light during our sleep. So what is melatonin used for in our body? It is a powerful antioxidant. Anti-oxidants have been shown to reduce cellular damage. Unfortunately, unlike other anti-oxidants, melatonin doesn't get recycled such that to make the melatonin we need to go through our sleep wake cycles. So the age old saying of " I'll catch up with my sleep" can't be true. We can't really catch up to our sleep. So what should we do? First is to sleep at an appropriate time such that when melatonin is suppose to be peaking, we are actually asleep to be making it, second to sleep in the dark. Meaning we get heavy curtains to keep out any sort of external lighting, we use something to cover up alarm clock lights and other sources of light.

We all have a "dark side" that needs to be nourished, so lets embrace it.