The timeless, futile effort to fix circadian rhythms with tech | Hacker News Reader

The timeless, futile effort to fix circadian rhythms with tech

reallifemag.com

59 pointsnobet15 comments

My medium/low tech solution was to get LED lightbulbs than can dim and turn red while also downloading apps like f.lux which likewise turn my monitor dim and red shifted. The idea was to switch my environment to a darkroom about two hours before my bed time. I figured that low light would still allow me to see while allowing my biology to start the nighttime wind-down process. I was inspired by the lighting in film processing, figuring that low red light allows people to see while not chemically interacting with the pigments sensitive to visible light. So it seemed like it might also work the same way on the light sensing cells responsible for circadian rhythms.

The result is that I start to feel tired naturally while also avoiding the psychological tug of wanting to stay up later and later. Trying to immediately disconnect from my bright screens is difficult, but if I feel like I am gradually and naturally getting more tired in a dark room, it's not the same and I much more readily disconnect. Sometimes I even go to bed early because I feel satisfied with my time wasting.

I highly recommend other people give this method a shot.

Concur. Color and brightness-changing LED bulbs make a big difference.

Google passive-aggressively reminding me on my phone to set a consistent bed time doesn't mitigate the reality of a changing work cycle.

I did the exact same thing with the exact same source of inspiration! Worked wonders.

Any preferred brands on LED lightbulbs? Have gotten good mileage just out of f.lux for roughly the same reasons, would be glad to take it to the next level.

I'm using Philips Hue, and I'm quite satisfied with them. That being said, I know there are way more options to choose from now compared to when I bought these bulbs about three years ago. I'd recommend checking out a local lighting supply store and playing around with the options. Best Buy and Lowe's carry smart lights but I think they're starting to only carry one or two brands. You'll get more exposure from a specialty LED supplier.

I personally use some home depot branded zigbee bulbs myself. They only do the white temp changing and not rgb but they work rather well in my lamps and other fixtures. I use Home Assistant to do it but I suspect it could be done with any smart home system that supports zigbee lights.

It amazes me that so many people don't instinctively know that artificial light is tiring.

I use as little as possible of it. If it's dark, it's dark. It's not something we need to fear (anymore).

I did the same thing once I started really playing with Home Assistant. There's a wonderful little add-on/integration/whatever name you use now called Adaptive Lighting that can use those kinds of bulbs to change the temperature automatically as the day goes on (either fixed times, or with the sun). Not only do I not have to do it myself but I have them all timed with f.lux (and other computer and phone versions) so that it just all happens without me noticing. I can't say I notice a huge difference in my sleep but it does end up making all the lighting more pleasant all the time since it'll match (as close as you can) with sunlight during the day around noon and then start setting with the sun until it's about as red as everything can go after sundown.

https://community.home-assistant.io/t/new-adaptive-lighting-...

A really good book about circadian rhythms called "Life Time" was just released. Fascinating read if you're interested in it and it goes into details about the way we got to the western model of sleep. And challenges some of the assumptions that sleep must be continuous throughout the night to be good sleep.

Was interesting to read that in the middle ages their literature and records referenced a "first sleep" and "second sleep" in which it was common for people to sleep after dinner, get up again, do some things, and then sleep till morning!

Weird parallel: Apple ][ ad copy would include monitoring your biorhythms amongst the things you could do with it.

Yeah, I recall that also. Apple itself published a biorhythm program.[1] (A pic and WAV file are there!) Many 8-bit computer demos showed off their hi-res graphics with a classic biorhythm plot of three overlapping sines.

We know now though, as we basically did back then, that biorhythm theories have never been validated[2] but circadian rhythms are verifiable and appear to be a real feature of animal sleeping and eating patterns.

[1] https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20P...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorhythm_(pseudoscience)

hear me out... 30 hour days.

http://www.30hd.org/

I support this initiative, but I'm not looking forward to the 22-hour workdays.

you get 8 hours a day not working?!? :-)

I think Nasa did an experiment with some people living underground for a few months or something, the TLDR was the people living underground ending up living a 30hr day.

Tryptophan supplementation increases the effect of blue light on the body. However I see an increase in mesenchymal stem cell release through an increase in melatonin to be good thing unlike stem cells from adipose tissue, and melatonin is 4x more potent as an antioxidant than vitamin C.

The Circadian rhythms are probably best viewed as the chemical decay of various chemical pathways in the body much like particle decay is for physics.

Diet and light can influence them but be mindful of the fact the human body has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to this planets light cycle and environment, so any deviation like we see with todays tech can have erroneous effects on the body.

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