If you're one of the many Canadians heading to a campsite this long weekend, you might be in for a better night's sleep.
According to a new study, spending time in the great outdoors might just push the reset button on the biological clock that governs sleep.
The small study -- published in the most recent edition of Current Biology - tracked eight participants over a two-week period.
Each person was given a wristwatch that monitored their exposure to light and their activities throughout the day: first during the course of a standard week and then as they spent seven days in Colorado's Rocky Mountains - a setting free of artificial light.
At the end of each week, a lab used the wristwatch to analyze the participants' melatonin levels, a hormone that affects a human's sleep-wake schedule.
The study found that the week spent in the Rockies was enough to synchronize the participants' internal sleep clocks with the timing of the sunrise and sunset.
Even those who classified themselves as "night owls" ended up adjusting their schedules after seven days.
"Some people are morning types and others like to stay up later. What we found is that natural light-dark cycles provide a strong signal that reduces the differences that we see among people -- night owls and early birds -- dramatically," said University of Colorado professor and study leader Kenneth Wright.
It's long been held that electric light tricks our circadian clocks and allows our bodies to stay awake during times where we would naturally be sleeping. That's why sleep experts will suggest powering down electronics -- such as TVs or computers -- about an hour before bedtime.
And since the majority of our days are filled with artificial lighting, Wright says our propensity to be either a night owl or an early bird is left up to our genes.
"When people are living in the modern world -- living in these constructed environments -- we have the opportunity to have a lot of differences among individuals."
Wright says small changes in our daily routine can be made to help us match our sleep patterns to the solar clock.
In addition to dimming electric light at night, Wright says morning walks and early exposure to sunlight can help "nudge" our internal clocks back into place.
