I had one from 2010 and the bright light wasn't even the main problem at night.
The charger emitted an annoying high pitch sound so I'd have to unplug it.
And the device turned itself on randomly at night, and the CD-ROM reader and fans would spin up and make noise.
I've now used a macbook air for work and I noticed that even when in "standby" for a week my router had a DHCP lease for it. So they still turn on for no reason, but at least the lack of fans and the fact that I can now use a decent usbc charger means they don't wake me up any more.
You can disable it but yes macs will periodically wake up to get emails and notifications even while they are ‘sleeping’
I love how when americans wake up simple factual statements get downvoted because they are somehow seen as personal insults.
Feel free to downvote, this one is meant for it :)
You can disable "Wake for Network Access" in the battery settings if you want. It's a convenience option that lets MacOS check for new iMessages and other updates while it's asleep. That way all your messages are loaded immediately when you wake the device.