6 May 2020

Light, clock and Covid19

Since more than one month most of us sit at home in the ‘home-office’ due to the Corona pandemic. To work from home sounded like a dream a few years ago and today it is reality with all its advantages and disadvantages.

Obviously, staying at home reduces the spread of the virus, but after a few days we become aware of the many restrictions that come along with this. Little contact to people outside the family, less spontaneous decisions to visit a museum or a concert and less sports outside with friends just to name a few disadvantages. One advantage though is that we can get up in the morning when we feel like it and we can catch up on sleep and live according to our internal body clock. So, nothing to worry about … at first glance.

Staying at home means for many people not to go out of the apartment and stay all day long inside in more or less well illuminated living rooms. As a consequence, our internal body clock receives less of the daily light signal that stimulates and boosts the strength of our clock, and hence, the ticking of the body clock fades. Since the clock influences many body functions, such as eating, mood and the immune system, this has dramatic consequences. Coupled with little activity we start snacking and gaining weight, become prone to a depressive attitude towards life and fatally, also become more vulnerable towards infections due to a lowered activity of the immune system.