What the northern lights might be doing to your sleep this week…

If you are like me, your sleep has been incredibly out of whack this week. At first, I assumed it was good ol insomnia, my childhood and young adult nemesis, which so many of us are familiar with if you grew up with chronic childhood stress, insomnia, or have PTSD. While I have managed to resolve 90% of it, now and then when my routine is disrupted, it rears it’s ugly head.

So, I grabbed my earplugs. Melatonin. White noise. Turned off electronics with blue light spectrum exposure. I even did yoga and meditated at three am, exhausted myself with social events, cleaning, walking the dogs, etc. all the middle age white lady tricks we read about. And….over the course of four days, I probably slept a total of four hours. It flat out did not work even close to the way it usually does.

And then I got to thinking, with my camera aimed at the sky on Saturday night hoping to see these northern lights….What impact does a major solar magnetic flair like this have on the human body? As I went back to work, I noticed that many of my clients have not slept much this week—everyone is struggling with emotions, brain fog, weird menstrual cycles, moody animals….and my intrigue increased.

So I did some research, and thought I would share with y’all night owls what I have found!

Photo of purple and pink lights in the horizon behind silhouette of a Joshua Tree in the California Desert, photo credit to Erik Jepsen.

One study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 1994 found that “geomagnetic storms may partly account for the seasonal variation in the incidence of depression, by acting as a precipitant of depressive illness in susceptible individuals…supported by a statistically significant 36.2% increase in male hospital admissions with a diagnosis of depressed phase, manic-depressive illness in the second week following such storms compared with geomagnetically quiet control periods.”

Another study published last year asserts that “Solar storms reduce melatonin levels by affecting enzymes required for its biosynthesis in the pineal gland and retina” which might explain how these storms are messing with our ability to fall asleep. The study even shares data from a Moscow study that found showed that 85,819 myocardial infarctions were correlated with solar storms, and even asserts that the impact of these storms on our sleep may cause a secondary reduction in our immune system function, correlating sunspot events with disease outbreaks in history! Check out the image below published in this study:

I suppose this really isn’t surprising, considering the physics of these events can impact satelites, cellular and utility grids, and cause neon lights to show up in our normally dark and starry California skies.

Another study pubished in 2006 by the University of Melbourne, Australia found a measurable impact of these disturbances in the magnetic field on the incidence of suicide in women.

“The modulation of mood and behaviour is probably attributable to a direct effect of perturbations in the ambient electromagnetic field on the neurobiology, perhaps disrupting sleep regulation, pineal function or cell membrane permeability. The nature of the perturbations of the low intensity electromagnetic fields in terms of intensity, duration and other descriptors, required to influence mood and behaviour are at this stage unknown, as are interindividual susceptibilities. These findings suggest that it may be possible for human mood and behaviour to be impacted by other, man-made, perturbations in the ambient electromagnetic field such as those caused by the power distribution grid and electrical devises. Further research is needed to determine if these perturbations adversely impact human mental health.”

And another study published in the biomedical journal Science Direct in 2023 found that magnetic field disruptions can impact human circadian rhythms, cause reduced metabolism, gastrointestinal disorders, and altered immune cell numbers.

“Severe disruption of the circadian rhythm increases inflammation which can induce fatigue, fever and flu-like symptoms in a fraction of the population and worsen existing symptoms in old and diseased individuals, leading to periodic spikes of infectious and chronic diseases. Possible mechanisms underlying sensing of the earth's EMFs involve entrainment via electrons and electromagnetic waves, light-dependent radical pair formation in retina cryptochromes, and paramagnetic magnetite nanoparticles. Factors such as electromagnetic pollution from wireless devices, base antennas and low orbit internet satellites, shielding by non-conductive materials used in shoes and buildings, and local geomagnetic anomalies may also affect sensing of the earth's EMFs by the human body and contribute to circadian rhythm disruption and disease development.”

Kinda makes you give those massive cell towers a little sideways glance and wonder if that one off-gridder hippie friend from high school is right, eh?

So this weekend, I hope you can catch up on some sleep! In the meantime, be kind to yourself as your brain struggles to get its circadian rhythms back on track….pull over when you get tired and take a short nap, postpone any major projects or decisions that need your full cognitive function, do the bare minimum in terms of chores and errands, watch your caffeine intake as much as possible, and try to give yourself, your children, spouse, and coworkers a little grace with their moods. If all else fails, it sounds like we can somewhat blame the sun!