Dim lights for the 60 minutes before bed

Drop overall light intensity in your home in the last hour before sleep to let melatonin rise undisturbed.

Why it works

Light suppresses melatonin via the ipRGC → SCN → pineal pathway, and the suppression is proportional to intensity. Bright overhead lighting in the evening tells the clock it is still daytime, blocking the melatonin rise that signals biological night. Dimming — not just shifting to warmer tones — removes this brake. The dominant lever is total photon flux, not screen blue light alone.

How to do it

1. Switch off overhead lights in favor of lower, dimmer lamps or candles in the hour before bed.
2. If you use screens, reduce brightness to minimum as well as enabling night mode — but recognize that total intensity reduction matters more than color alone.
3. Make the transition automatic: use smart bulbs on a timer or put lamps on a physical dimmer at a set time.

Evidence

Evening bright light suppressing melatonin and delaying circadian phase is well established; a controlled study found that indoor room-light exposure before bedtime suppressed melatonin by approximately 50% and reduced sleep duration compared to dim light conditions. (rct)

The study measured melatonin and subjective outcomes; generalization to long-term sleep quality improvement in healthy people is mechanistically well-founded but less directly RCT-studied as a routine-level intervention.

Sources

• Gooley et al. (2011), exposure to room light before bedtime suppresses melatonin, J. Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism

Common mistake

Using a blue-light filter on the phone while leaving all room lights at full brightness — the filter is minimal compared to the dominant effect of overall light intensity.