Europe-wide trial of bright light therapy lamps by Surrey University suggests that getting outside more could be a great way to get a good night’s kip10:12, 04 Sep 2026Updated 17:17, 04 Sep 2026Not getting outside for enough daylight is a major reason people do not get a good night’s sleep, scientists have said.‌British researchers were involved in a Europe-wide study showing bright light therapy lamps could improve sleep for older people who live in cities and do not get outside much.‌Scientists found that trial participants who were exposed to more natural light had higher activity levels in the day and reported better sleep quality. Bright light therapy lamps were then shown to improve sleep, activity levels and the body’s natural body clock known as the circadian rhythm.‌People who were a ‘morning person’ - so naturally woke up and went to sleep earlier - also got better sleep than people who had lie-ins and stayed up late.Dr Daan van Der Veen, senior lecturer in sleep and chronobiology at Surrey University, said: “Exposure to daytime light is crucial to regulate our circadian rhythms and our sleeping patterns, however often older adults in urban areas, due to the decline in their eyesight or perhaps mobility issues preventing them from going outside, do not get this exposure to good light. This can lead to sleep and health problems, increasing their risk to chronic diseases.”‌The average British adult gets between 6 and 6.4 hours of sleep per night - below the recommended 7 to 9 hours.Struggling with the dark, cold mornings as the seasons head towards winter is common. Some people can suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD, that can be linked to depression in the darker months.The Mirror reported from Europe’s biggest heart conference last week which saw research presented showing a weekend lie-in could protect against high blood pressure in people who do not get enough sleep.‌Not getting enough sleep is known to prevent blood pressure from dropping at night, which increases the risk of developing high blood pressure. It also increases the risk of a host of health problems.Getting enough good quality sleep typically gets more difficult as we age and to assess how this could be improved researchers recruited 200 participants aged 63 to 92 in three cities - Tartu in Estonia, Bologna in Italy and Amsterdam in the Netherlands.Following two weeks of baseline assessments, participants were split into two groups, one which were provided with a light therapy lamp and a control group who did not have a lamp.‌The lamp was placed at head height in the room where participants spent most of their time at home. They were instructed to turn on the lamp within one hour after waking up and turn it off four hours before their normal sleep time for at least 12 weeks.All participants wore a wrist actigraphy monitor and a pendant light sensor to measure activity levels and exposure to light. The study was repeated across all seasons.Article continues belowCo-author Débora Constantino, postgraduate research student at Surrey University, said: “What we have found is that early administration of light supplementation significantly enhances activity levels and reduces rest-activity fragmentation in older adults.“This is an exciting discovery and provides real-world evidence that light is a simple, non-pharmacological, and potentially cost-effective intervention, which, from a public health policy perspective, could help support healthy ageing.”The research team said bright light therapy lamps should be considered be considered for community settings like old people’s care homes. The study is published in the Journal of Pineal Research.