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Comment by qnsi | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what it does to people? Never leaving a building, not seeing sun for some people I speculate for days or weeks

One of the important things everyone should do is see natural light (not through windows) in first hour after waking up.

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> I wonder what it does to people?

Entirely depends on your personality.

I'm able to be alone for months at a time without it bothering me much. Other people go crazy after a few days of that. Some of that is determined by whether you merely enjoy the company of other people or if you require other people.

I enjoy the company of other people, however it extracts energy from me, and I preferably want to be alone afterward to recharge (social gatherings every night would deplete me, I'd require a break). Other people are more the social butterfly type, and they get recharged by being around other people, socializing, and they get increasingly depressed when that is missing.

I could spend months reading/working/thinking alone on an island (so to speak), and not have a care in the world about the passing of time. I'd enjoy having hundreds of years just to spend that way, there are so many things to learn and think about.

I'd argue it's not so much about whether you're introverted or extroverted. In a place like this, it seems like you have plenty of opportunity to be around others, or be alone (though, the article makes it sound like sometimes even alone time can be interrupted by intruding neighbors).

This is more about handling mostly indoor life vs. outdoor life, which impacts other aspects of wellbeing vs. socialization/introversion/extroversion.

The atmosphere (people dropping by for a visit at any hour in their pjs) reminds me of a university dorm. I'm not a particularly extroverted person, but I remember enjoying my time living in a dorm. I'm not sure I'd like it so much now though.

> One of the important things everyone should do is see natural light (not through windows) in first hour after waking up.

Is there some science behind this or is it a spirituality thing?

Sounds like a habit one living near the equator would take for granted and pass off as wisdom. In Anchorage, that would mean sleeping in past 9 in the winter. Good luck keeping a job on that schedule.

I’m pretty sure $300 worth of LED bulbs will work just fine. Getting to 50,000 lux or so in a room (which is some equation with lumens and the volume of the room, a small apartment should be easy to make bright as day vs a warehouse). It’ll only cost as much as running a few hundred watt bulbs incandescent bulbs did back in the day. The sun isn’t magic or anything.

Not saying it wouldn't be just as good, but the spectrum of emitted light would not be the same as the sun.

Then get the good daylight-simulator LEDs from Yuji[0]. If the spectrum is still too incomplete for your tastes, I'd recommend a carbon arc lamp, perhaps with a spectrum shaping filter to get up to 5600 K CCT.

[0]: This model is AFAIK the cheapest one per lumen in their non-entry-level series: https://store.yujiintl.com/collections/vtc-series/products/v...

It improves your sleep / wake cycles.

What does the glass block that improves your sleep and wake cycle?

UV light? Not a proponent of the idea (I live in Seattle, corncob LEDs FTW), but it is the only thing I can think of.

Glass blocks UVB. It doesn't block UVA, which is the light that is positively correlated with sleeping patterns.

https://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q12082.html

https://bmcdermatol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-...

common sense?

Growing up in Southern Norway, during winter it'd usually be pitch black when I got up, and I'd not only not see much natural light in the first hour after waking up, but it'd still be twilight until the first school lesson was underway.

It might be nice, but it's not that important.

That’s not possible during large stretches of winter in Alaska regardless of what kind of building you live in.

Why does observation through a window change anything?

they heard it on a podcast

I don't think it applies at apartment windows, but I believe many sky scrapes would have UV treatments on their windows.

Sunlight through a window is much less bright according to lumen meters than when you’re outside. We have neurons that wake you up more and directly respond to bright light early in the morning. (paraphrased, source from Huberman Lab podcast).

Whether it's in your peripheral vision.

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