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Comment by sampl | Hacker News Reader

If you want to get really really crazy, you could stop using your computer at night and try reading (paper) books before bed.

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Paper books don't have a built-in dictionary that pops up when I long-press my finger on a word :(.

My ebook reader does something like this.

irony == lost

Now if only they'd stop selling Kindles with awful pure white backlights. You only need it when it's dark, and when it's dark your light should be yellow/orange!

I gotta get me those goggles...

They are like ten bucks on Amazon. I have the Terminator UV 400 Orange model and I'm pretty happy with them. They block almost all light below 490nm.

I have Kobo Aura ONE[1] and it has automatic orange backlight. I'm relatively happy with it even though the lighting is slightly uneven and has barely visible greenish hues at the corners...

[1] https://us.kobobooks.com/products/kobo-aura-one

So interestingly enough, wearing the orange goggles or using the rubylith on a device that lights itself can get less blue light into your eyes than reading a book with a lamp on next to you (or of course, wear the goggles with a lamp on works too). Could be a further way to fall asleep faster. I've been fascinated by this phenomenon for a while - the theory I've heard is that humans evolved during a time when the sun was the only source of light besides maybe fire, and so darkness or light the color of fire signaled the time for being sleepy. When you get the blue colored light into your eyes at night the brain gets confused and doesn't know what time it is.

Thanks for a genuine answer to my snarky reply :)

Re fire, another thing that’s helped me is using candlelight in the evening. It keeps things darkish (and of course it’s a warm color of light).

Haha, no problem! And yeah, candles would definitely then work. Some people I've read suggest that if you can don't use any artificial lights at night (obviously kind of difficult), and if you do you'll naturally start getting tired at sunset. Then you get to wake up at 5am! Hard to have a social life though.

In a nutshell, what normally happens is light decreases, your body releases melatonin, and you feel sleepy shortly thereafter.

With the advent of artificial lighting, we started delaying our dim-light melatonin onset (DLMO). It most strongly responds to blue light, but it does respond to other wavelengths, too, so some people find that any light is too much.

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