Hacker News Reader

Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

Every year when I go to re:invent, Amazon's big conference in Las Vegas, I schedule nap time from 3pm to 5pm. When I'm there I meeting with lots of different people, from as early as 7am to as late (early?) as 1am, and sometimes I'm out till 3am or later.

That nap is the only thing that makes it bearable. And I get mocked for it and I don't care. But sleep is no joke.

I also do all the blue shift/night shift stuff on my phones and laptops year round, and that seemed to make a big difference when I started doing it. I went as far as replacing every light I need at night to one that can go as low as 1850K, so I see no blue light for a few hours before bed.

View on HN

Off topic a bit, but I have a small sony flatscreen tv in the house. The only one, but the kids use it all the time now.

Does anyone know of a way to "night shift" those things? Kids are trying their best to get into university, so I get that late studying is necessary. I even get that some kids prefer to watch some things on the TV. (Youtube/Netflix documentaries etc.) I've replaced lights, etc. But the TV is still blasting out blue light at all hours for them. Might be better if I could cut that down too I'm thinking?

You may be able to go into the Picture settings and see if there are colour temperature settings, or calibration settings that you could reduce the Blue and Green channels on to taste. However, this will Night Shift the TV screen all the time, even during the day.

I haven't figured out how to do the TV. If I want to watch TV at night, I use my computer which run flu.x. Maybe if you have a spare old computer lying around you can hook it up to the TV and then install something on that to yellow-shift everything and then watch with that?

My new LG TV has a "Reduce Eye Strain" setting which does a flux-like red shift, reducing blue light. I haven't found a setting to do this based on time of day, and it's a bit buried in menus, so I just leave it on all the time as it isn't too severe. I tend to watch TV mostly in the evening anyway.

https://www.costco.com/LG-55%22-Class-(54.6%22-Diag.)-4K-Ult...

There appears to be an HDMI type device on Amazon that works, albiet buggy. Perhaps a better device needs to come along for the rest of us :)

In my experience it wouldn't help much even if you could, unless the screen is the only light in the room. The only thing that moved the needle for me was wearing glasses that just "night shift" everything.

You'd think someone would make a custom-sized film for this purpose.

TV Manufacturers need to start including this feature.

If your TV doesn't have any specific blue light settings, you can get an external device like driftTV[0]. Even without a specific blue light reduction mode, I recommend turning down the brightness to the lowest comfortable setting.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/driftTV-Remove-Blue-Your-Sleep/dp/B01...

Holy crap $129 is a bit for that. I’ll wait for all the cheap knock offs to copy and improve it (eg, a remote).

I don't know about others, everyone seems to like naps, but I feel completely wasted after midday sleep.

I've tended to find with experimentation that adjusting your nap duration can stop that wasted effect. I tend to take a 90 minute lunch break, where i nap. It takes me ages to get to sleep, but I'm rarely wasted (even more tired when i wake up ). I suspect i get somewhere between 20 and 60 minutes sleep in total, but 9 times out of 10 I'm refreshed. The other 1/10 its generally my work brain won't stop considering ways to resolve work issues.

Are you sleeping for exactly 1 sleep cycle, which for most people is roughly 1.5 hours, of which only the middle half hour is deep sleep. If you set your alarm for an hour, you will probably be woken in your deep sleep and be "wasted". Similarly, if you extend your nap to 2 hours and fall into the second deep sleep.

90 mins? Most of the afternoon naps I do tend to be short - like 15-25 minutes, and that generally refreshes me enough to feel "restarted" for another few hours. I can get through the rest of the day pretty good on that. "Rest of the day" being doing "thinking work" for another few hours - I'm not trying to get another full day or work (or even socializing) after that.

That's the other kind of nap, where you don't actually sleep. That's fine too. The point is that a lot of people will sleep, but set their alarm to wake them up in the middle of their deep sleep and then be surprised that they are so groggy.

thanks. I guess it's usually felt like 'quick sleep' but that's my layman's view from the easy chair. :)

I’ve never yet been able to find the standard deviation data on the research that established that the average sleep cycle lasts 90 minutes. Presumably there’s as much variation across individuals as everything else about individuals

I know the concept of deep sleep and cycles but how the hell could you plan this? Like ok, I'm sleepy due to lack of sleep, now I have a certain stretch of time with no time constraints - how do you know when you will fall asleep, when will enter deep sleep phase and whe will it end? I have no idea about any of those numbers.

There are mobile apps or fitness watches/bands that apparently can tell your sleep state based on your movement etc. I don't know how accurate they are because my phone is cheap with cheap sensors.

You tell these apps what time you want to wake up at the latest, and they will ring the alarm before that time when you are not in deep sleep.

Where do you get good 1850K LED bulbs?

They're not easy to find! Mostly what I have are wifi LED bulbs with adjustable color. I have a Feit LED bulb where the "yellow" setting is pretty close to 1850K. I also have the GE LED bulb that actually goes to 1850. And then I have a bunch of night lights from Costco where they yellowest yellow is around 1850.

Basically anytime I go somewhere that sells bulbs I'll check them out and look for ones that can be adjusted to 1850K.

I've never found just a straight 1850K bulb at a decent price. They don't seem to exist.

Thanks. Do you have any specific recommendations on WiFi LED bulbs that you've liked at that color temperature range?

Consider getting them to wear anti blue light glasses. Just search Blue Light Blocking Glasses on amazon.

Somewhat related, but a few months ago I got some Gunnar eyeglasses [1], and I simply love them. Strongly recommend everyone to use blue light glasses, at least at home.

[1] https://gunnar.com

Reply on news.ycombinator.com