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Ethnopharmacological relevance: Two types of traditional Chinese formulas of botanical drugs are prescribed for treating perimenopausal syndrome (PMS), a disorder in middle-aged women during their transition to menopause. One is for treating PMS as kidney deficiency (KD) due to senescence and declining reproductive functions, and the other is for treating it as liver qi stagnation (LQS) in association with stress and anxiety. Despite the time-tested prescriptions, an objective attestation to the effectiveness of the traditional Chinese treatment of PMS is still to be established and the associated molecular mechanism is still to be investigated.Materials and methods: A model for PMS was generated from perimenopausal rats with chronic restraint stress (CRS). The effectiveness of traditional Chinese formulas of botanical drugs and a combination of two of the formulas was evaluated based on 1H NMR plasma metabolomic, as well as behavioral and physiological, indicators. To investigate whether the formulas contained ligands that could compensate for the declining level of estrogen, the primary cause of PMS, the ligand-based NMR technique of saturation transfer difference (STD) was employed to detect possible interacting molecules to estrogen receptors in the decoction.Results: Each prescription of the classical Chinese formula moderately attenuated the metabolomic state of the disease model. The best treatment strategy however was to combine two traditional Chinese formulas, each for a different etiology, to adjust the metabolomic state of the disease model to that of rats at a much younger age. In addition, this attenuation of the metabolomics of the disease model was by neither upregulating the estrogen level nor supplementing an estrogenic compound.Conclusion: Treatment of PMS with a traditional Chinese formula of botanical drugs targeting one of the two causes separately could ameliorate the disorder moderately. However, the best outcome was to treat the two causes simultaneously with a decoction that combined ingredients from two traditional prescriptions. The data also implicated a new paradigm for phytotherapy of PMS as the prescribed decoctions contained no interacting compound to modulate the activity of estrogen receptors, in contrast to the treatment strategy of hormone replacement therapy.

Awakening lighting has an important influence on circadian rhythm, alertness, mood and other physiological and psychological indexes. In a real situation with no electric awakening light, psychological suggestion or interference, the influencing mechanism of awakening daylight on human physiology and psychology is explored from the awakening data of dynamic daylight. This data can further guide the application of electric awakening lighting. The effects of daylight exposure at eye level on sleep quality, morning alertness, mood and fatigue of college students in dormitories in Beijing were studied. The subjects were 8 male and 8 female students from 4 dormitories in two adjacent apartments, and field experiments were conducted for 36 days in winter and 30 days in summer. The real-time illuminance of daylight before awakening was recorded by a wireless illuminance sensor, and the amount of light exposure and the maximum illuminance before awakening were calculated. The evaluation data of physiological and psychological indexes such as sleep quality, morning alertness, mood and fatigue were obtained by using sleep monitoring equipment—Jawbone UP3, PSQI, KSS, positive and negative semantic scales. The results showed that the lighting exposure accumulation before awakening in summer were significantly correlated with morning alertness, mood and deep sleep duration and there was a significant correlation between the Emax and morning alertness in summer. In addition, there were significant differences in deep sleep duration and morning alertness between different groups of lighting exposure accumulation in summer. There was no significant correlation between the lighting exposure accumulation or max value of illuminance and the physiological and psychological indexes in winter.

A dormitory is one of the most important places for college students at a university. The daylight of a dormitory has an important impact on students' work efficiency, mood, and sleep quality. To explore the influence of daylight exposure on morning alertness, mood, and sleep quality before waking up, a study was conducted based on the hourly dynamic meteorological parameters of Beijing to simulate the daylight exposure at eye level of students on different beds on the sixth floor of the No. 11 apartments at Tsinghua University. The data for sleep quality, morning alertness, and mood were collected by a subjective questionnaire in November and December in 2017 for 88 male students in 28 dormitories and in May and June for 90 male students in 36 dormitories. The results showed that the positive correlation between the eye light exposure before waking up and the quality of sleep and morning alertness was significant. This study can provide a reference for the daylight design of dormitory spaces and the scientific arranging of beds and orientations; it can also provide a reference for a rotation system.