Day and Night

I just disconnected from AT&T vpn connection. Work finished. Sad it's 5:30 AM. Surprisingly I am not that tired, that's probably because I slept 12 hours the night before.

Mom finally contacted us a day later. Turned out her charger wouldn't charge the batteries so she was out of juice. Worried all day and night. But all that counts is that she was fine. So yesterday my bro ordered a new charger and it's on her way.

Guess my body won't get a chance to produce melatonin tonight. Another night lost facing the computer monitors. Recent alarming studies have revealed that proper sleep in the dark suppresses body's ability to produce melatonin which in turn decreases our ability to fight off cancer cells and thus increases our risk for breast cancer. Lovely.

From http://www.medical-library.org/journals2a/melatonin.htm:

Melatonin is a hormone produced by the pineal gland in the brain, melatonin also occurs naturally in some foods.

Timekeeping Hormone

Secreted only in the dark, melatonin provides a time-of-day cue to diurnal and nocturnal species. For some animals and birds, it also provides a time-of-year signal for migration, hibernation, and estrus cycles. Melatonin's secretion is one of hundreds of circadian, or approximately 24-hour, rhythms in bodily functions controlled by the suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) of the hypothalamus, which comprise the body's master clock. Melatonin receptors have been found in the SCN, which is itself entrained by daylight signals received.

Daylight intensity light-roughly 5 times brighter than ordinary indoor light-suppressed melatonin secretion.
Young adults typically secrete about 5 micrograms to 25 micrograms of melatonin per day. In most people, secretion declines dramatically with age, a fact some researchers suggest accounts for the higher prevalence of meletonin.

Need to sleep more.