Lack of sunlight during the day is worse than electric lighting at night
english.elpais.com
english.elpais.com
Article[0] came up across a feed which was saying the same thing, and I said screw it, and got two 100W LED corn bulbs[1] that the article suggested, and boy did it make a difference. Literally came mid last week, and for the last 4 days, I've had more energy, better sleep, and felt better than I have in months, years even. Incredible difference for $60.
The corn bulbs are just like light bulbs so they fit into the same sockets (some are bigger, but get the ones that say E26). You can also get specific lamps to put them around. I also got some construction string lights[2] and hanging those on my wall. Makes it almost seem like I'm in a museum which is cool too.
My goal is to get some more lights and make my living / office area legit feel like I'm outside on a summer day. I have a lux meter coming today to be able to see and judge intensity. If it's too intense, I can turn them off like I'm going into the shade.
The importance of letting your body know when it's daytime and nighttime, which is talked about in the article, makes all parts of life better. Eat better, more energy to do things, less angry. Part of me disappointed I didn't know this before, but another part glad that I'm catching on now.
[0] https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZHMD5ZL [2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5X7XLRQ
Not to one-up here, but the UK gets around 60 hours on sunshine across the whole of November, compared to Minnesota at about 115.
Europe north of the Mediterranean is gloomy beyond basically anywhere populated in North America.
It's made even worse by the fact we use the same timezone in Poland that Spain uses. So it's bright in the winter at 7, but it gets dark at 15:00 :/ If you work 8-16 as most people do - you get up in the dark, commute in the dawn, work while the sun is in the sky, and comute back in the dark...
I would much prefer if we moved 1 or 2 hours east timezone-wise. I'm fine with comuting in the dark one-way, but please give me at least 1 hour of sunlight after work...
Not because the people were brilliant. Simply because they were forced inside and had lots of time to think.
Thankfully, the good ol' USA is a massive country, so I hit the eject button and moved to FL.
3154 hours of sun in FL compared to 2170 hours of sun in WA. Huuuuuuge difference in mental and physical aptitude. I feel more energetic. More focus, more workouts, more horny, less self loathing.
https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-sun...
Or is it like the state politics? Like someone who loved Portland might hate eastern Oregon, but the state of Oregon as a majority is more progressive so it’s ok?
Personally I care far more about local politics/culture than state or national politics/culture and would rather be in a state opposed to my way of life, while in a city that isn’t, than vice versa. Though ideally both, but can’t always have it all.
I can tell you've never had to deal with the Miami-Dade Police Department
Everywhere was a shithole with backwards, ignorant people spouting their hateful bullshit, and none of my gay/lesbian/trans friends ever felt really safe (the only places where they felt more comfortable were Miami so long as the police weren't involved and Key West during tourist season).
I barely felt safe there as a bisexual man, and avoided an attempted gay bashing because I was concealed carrying a gun and made it clear that I _would_ use it. The only way I felt safe from homophobes at night was if I was carrying.
The sooner the Atlantic Ocean reclaims Florida the better.
The hikes are serendipitous.
Post pandemic, housing got bat shit crazy though.
If we only experienced western Washington for those months hardly anyone would stay, but those summer months are so incredible it makes it worth enduring the dreary gray for a good amount of people.
Compared to 1403 hours here in London :(
Is there any >=100W (actual, not equivalent) sunlight-like bulb available that is dimmable and programmable via ZigBee or other means?
With the corn bulbs, it blasts energy and more light all over, which makes a much bigger difference in vibe. I can't comment on the lux difference (I'm actually getting a lux meter today so I can get a better number in comparison), but with more light all over the room, I can feel much more energy overall.
LED light panels are the other thing I think you mention, and I haven't tested with those. I picked corn bulbs to try first. Compared to the marketed mood lamps, the bigger panels would also light the whole room for a better vibe.
I don't think there are dimmable LED type higher power bulbs or panels. On or off for them. I'm planning to get more lights, and then maybe see if there's a way to create shades to put over them to change the color and amount depending on day.
For now, I'm keeping the lamps powered until ~6pm, and then back to the old light I had before to get ready for sleep.
(Title: The ongoing torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange)
In a recent story, D3f4ult discussed that this happened to him for a year and he was given 24/7 isolation for one year. [2]
[1]: https://solitarywatch.org/facts/faq/ [2]: https://journalistsresource.org/home/solitary-confinement-re... [3]: https://darknetdiaries.com/transcript/139/
it is completely about barbarian, punitive, punishment. it doesn't work, but it makes many of us feel good, so we continue doing it.
I once had to do a deposition with a warden, so I asked him straight out how they got away with this. His answer was "math". Basically he said "Look, jails are short term facilities, the average stay here is 30 days. Nobody is going to come to harm in 30 days."
The problem with the word "average" is that it is very misleading. When say 50% of those arrested are able to bail out within hours, that brings the average down considerably, compared to the other significant part of the population who have been in there up to 11 years waiting for trial.
Lack of D wouldn't be good for the brain. Symptoms of Shortage could be bone pain, muscle weakness, fatigue, cardiovascular disease, asthma etc but those are things you would notice.
Also, what?
>... circadian rhythms are the 24-hour changes in our physiology that synchronize with the day-night cycle and modulate when we are hungry, sleepy, want sex and have asthma attacks or a fever in the afternoon.
Is this about that circadian rhythm line? It look true, if not under-stated. Shift between nights and days was one of the major constant things throughout the evolution of life. And the influence of this rhythm goes deeper than just physiology - it reaches a molecular level. Almost every cell in the body has a mechanism for keeping internal time of the day [1]. And they are kept in synch through suprachiasmatic nucleus, mainly via the light through the retina, changes in temperature, and food intake [2].
It is so prevalent, that even small things, like your sense of smell or which nasal side is more active and which one is congested falls under circadian regulation [3].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_clock
Summarizing:
> [They] are the [...] changes [...] that [...] modulate when we [...] have asthma attacks or a fever in the afternoon.
That does not read clearly to me!
A couple options to improve:
1. circadian rhythms are the 24-hour changes in our physiology that synchronize with the day-night cycle and modulate when we are hungry, sleepy, want sex, or, in the afternoon, have asthma attacks or a fever.
2. circadian rhythms are the 24-hour changes in our physiology that synchronize with the day-night cycle and modulate when we are hungry, sleepy, want sex, or suffer conditions like asthma attacks or fevers.
3. circadian rhythms are the 24-hour changes in our physiology that synchronize with the day-night cycle and modulate when we are hungry (mealtimes), sleepy (nighttime), want sex (??? i didnt know this was a thing), or suffer asthma attacks or fevers (afternoons).
Only for people unable to understand a sentence in context.
In general, the Oxford comma, or it's lack thereof, rarely, if ever, is a problem - except for grammar geeks (and even those have debated its significance since forever).
https://desk.thecontentcloud.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/...
That was the best written part of the description, and was written with a clear intention.
The author wanted to add some more surprising (but still really affected by circadian rhythms) stuff, to make the description more memorable and interesting, even to those that knew the "hungry" and "sleepy" part.
The latter: https://hms.harvard.edu/news/circadian-rhythm-asthma
>For the fever part, I haven't noticed such a pattern for myself. Does it mean that fevers are more likely to occur in the afternoon, or does it mean that a normal human's daily temperature pattern resembles a fever in the afternoon?
Apparently the first: https://westjem.com/articles/fever-incidence-is-much-lower-i...
But it's also true our daily temperature pattern changes throughout the day following a circadian rhythm (though I wouldn't call it rising that it "resembles a fever").
In the article it reads:
> Question. During your Nobel Prize acceptance speech, you mentioned that 50% of our genes were regulated by circadian rhythms, but in your talk you said that it is at least 70%?
> Answer. I have updated the figure due to new research done over the past six years. The 50% figure came from research in rodents, but in 2019 there was a large study done on baboons, the first in primates, and [the figure] went to 70%.
I took these figures to also apply to the relevance of the title, which is a quote from the article?
That's how circadian rhythms work, and all of the above are true. The author just picked some more unusual/funny/jarring examples after the staples "hungy and sleepy" to drive his point and give some fun to the article.
One problem is where the window faces. A north-facing window, or a window facing into a hillside or into a courtyard, does not allow sufficient sunlight. In London, my flat is in a Victorian terraced house, and the bedroom I'd use as a home office has a window which only has views of the house next door, and very little natural light. (That said, probably still more natural light than I got in my office, where I'm essentially in a corridor.)
If the 'health' benefit or bio signal for this effect, requires UV radiation then there is very little that can substitute being outside for 1 or 2 hours a day depending on the season.
Interestingly, red wave (IR) light appears to influence cortisol levels but not melatonin. [1] IR also makes it through windows as any cat can attest.
Getting outside for an hour or two as often as possible, regardless of the season, is probably a good idea, but it doesn't appear to be strictly necessary for modulating circadian rhythms.
It was miserable. The direct light was blinding during the summer,and during the winter the sun didn't clear the top of the window so I got direct light straight at either me or my screens. I tried every orientation.
COVID solved that problem but the next step was blackout blinds, which defeats the purpose a little
So every winter I actually take a long 2 hour walk during lunch to get some sun. Then I work later once the sun has set.
This should be the standard for all office workers in northern latitudes. But we're so stuck in our ways that we use the same work schedule all year even though the weather is clearly different.
One thing you notice is that because there is no fiber or sugar (or carbs of any kind) in the diet, you end up basically never farting -- and the volume of your poop decreases by something like 80%.
You also hold a lot less water weight, your tolerance for alcohol decreases dramatically (although if you were strict about the diet you wouldn't be consuming alcohol anyway), you seem to have much less nasal congestion, and heartburn completely disappears. And your skin feels better.
I've looked into it, and this diet is nutritionally complete -- it is not lacking in any vitamins or minerals. Fresh meat even contains some vitamin C. You can eat some sardines from time to time for extra calcium.
On the whole I can't recommend this diet enough -- you end up in phenomenal shape.
It's a diet with lots of externalities, which really shouldn't scale up - Atkins and Paleo were disasters, really. (And it's worth reading about the long term research on the Atkins diet: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet )
Worth considering whether you can get similar effects with, say, 50% of the calories coming from plants. It sounds like you're mainly after carb- or gluten-free, which is quite doable without resorting to an all meat diet.
I did keto for 8 years and it was fantastic. I am no longer on it for other reasons that have nothing to do with the diet itself.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/carnivore-diet#downside...
One overlooked factor is bioavailability of nutrients, not just how much there are in food. Lots of plants are high in X, but it's not very bioavailable, but nutrients in meat tend to be highly.
Ignoring that, just the cost alone will be extreme. Oh it’s fine for you, you’re probably consuming garbage meat. Oh you only buy “grass fed” you’re probably buying grass pellet fed meat that has been shown to not have the nutritional diversity of actual grass fed meat.
How is, eat a balanced diet, mostly plants become so controversial.
Megafauna don't make much of diet of African hunter-gatherers cause they are a lot of work to hunt. They hunt smaller game. Gathering is much easier and safer.
This is such a low bar that it's not really saying much at all. There are very real reasons why this kind of diet is almost certainly not healthy long term - risk of CVD being the main one.
> One overlooked factor is bioavailability of nutrients
This is not a significant factor that someone should be basing a diet on. Bioavailability is influenced by many factors and the vast majority of people aren't eating enough nutrient-rich foods, period. Optimizing based on bioavailability misses the forest for the trees.
Yeah it is, if you aren't eating meat and aren't getting the required nutrients, despite eating foods rich in them, but aren't bioavailable leading to deficiency.
Claiming the efficiency of a fuel (food) isn't important is pretty silly.
How many people do you think have this problem? Logically, it doesn't even really make sense: you would have to somehow be eating enough of a food that would, if "optimally bioavailable" (as in the best case real world scenario), give you enough of that nutrient but you are eating too little of it to overcome the lack of bioavailability and so little to result in deficiency (but again, still enough that deficiency would not happen with "optimal bioavailability"). What nutrient do you think has this issue and what is your evidence?
Again, far and away the biggest issue is people not eating enough healthy food period. Anyone who cares enough to eat sufficient healthy food (with little consideration for bioavailability) would be the kind of person who's diet would be overcoming any bioavailability issues anyways. Essentially the only people I see who nitpick bioavailability are those trying to convince others that their diet is the best one.
Luckily we don't have to depend on our "views". We have data to work through differing perspectives and there is no good data to support your conclusions (and much to the contrary)
I like the flavor of plants, so I don't do carnivore myself. But you seem to be a few decades behind on the research.
It’s frustrating to me that there is zero talk about genetics when it comes to diet and specifically when it comes to keto because those of us who are carry genetic polymorphisms in our CPT1A gene that makes it harder for us to go into ketosis. Therefore, we do better on a higher meat diet.
And the argument of "now I feel so much better" I have heard it with absolutely every kind of diets. Vegetarians now eating meat. Meat eaters now vegetarians. Paleo. Gluten-free. Crude/Raw...
What to do ? Eliminate plants and meat? Just eat oreos?
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FoqlTVCWIAI81XY?format=jpg&name=...
Because you have high cholesterol but have not yet died, does not mean it is safe.
There are countless studies that show meat based diets impact cardo health. That doesn't mean sugar doesn't also. Or if meat good, then carbs bad, or carbs good, meat bad.
It isn't all binary. Generally if you are throwing back a rack of ribs everyday to be 'low carb', then things aren't going to end well for you.
<EDIT>
I think I see. This claim was so out there I had to look it up. There is actually a 'U' curve. So very low and very high cholestoral is risk.
But think this goes back to my point. Health isn't about 'cholesterol' because there is good and bad and the relationship to cardo health isn't clear. You can have high 'good' cholesterol.
But, that doesn't mean you can eat ribs everyday. There are other factors.
Do you eat fibre? Or do you shit literal bricks?
There was a period in my life where I experienced this firsthand. Do not recommend.
I'm not interested in spending 80% less time on the toilet (going from less than a minute to 10 seconds just seems like a pointless optimization). I'm also not too interested in the purported anecdotal experience of "tens of thousands" of other people. This diet seems like a terrible idea, both from a bowel health point of view, a climate point of view, and quite frankly a taste point of view.
Not eating vegetables/fibre seems like a miserable existence.
[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2020.5715...
I'd imagine Northern Europeans would benefit from a similar arrangement, though they're likely better adapted to a different periodicity of feasting and fasting, given the climate and the longer periods where fresh food is unavailable.
It's exceptionally lazy and unimaginative to dismiss out of hand a procedure practiced globally for thousands of years.
>The essential function of sleep may be its restorative effect on the brain: "Sleep is of the brain, by the brain and for the brain."[95] This theory is strengthened by the fact that sleep is observed to be a necessary behavior across most of the animal kingdom, including some of the least evolved animals which have no need for other functions of sleep, such as memory consolidation or dreaming.
I'm not sure I understand the distinction you're trying to make. There's not purpose in a volitional sense in evolution, only effects. We sleep because necessary functions occur when we do and problems happen when we don't.
Or it is to conserve energy during the time that we are on the dark side of this spinning globe, since it is difficult to see in the dark.
The Earth had been spinning on its axis for a billion years when the first living beings appeared. Since then, we have adapted to alternate between light and darkness.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/adaptation...
Evolutionary adaptation, or simply adaptation...State A: No Earth
State B: Earth.
Thus, we adapted to Earth.
Organisms are continually adapting. So this question seemed to be calling into question the findings because the earth always rotated and so always had a night and day, so State A and B are identical, thus we didn't adapt.
Also in the anecdotes folder, saw a sleep specialist with my (young adult) child and he stressed the importance of getting daily sunlight exposure.
Further evidence to me that humans weren't supposed to stray far from the equator and that I was born in the wrong climate (yes I am working on moving south)
Living in the southern hemisphere it's hot here at the moment and were keeping an eye on the bushfire reports.
(I'm on the combination bushfire and flood website.)
Realistically, folks aren't getting sun in the morning.
I'm not looking to move south, though. I moved up here for marriage and the weather has just been a nice benefit.
Think outside the box, wake up at noon.
http://www.seoulsemicon.com/en/technology/sunlike/casestudy/
(There was an article about some guy with an IR heater on his desk, which was partially faulty, and emitted too much IR in a certain frequency, and damaged his eyes)
My understanding is that typically it isn't an issue, but the hearer malfunctioned, and it was on his desk, and so he was kind of staring at it all day.
I'd take care. Don't stare into the light, for starters.
Though looking at the research they are probably putting out enough energy in the blue spectrum to risk cataracts (so do your own safety research).
Regardless of weather and sunlight, you should avoid this as much as possible. Due dates are almost always arbitrary, especially in software.
Sometime about 1.5 years ago I decided to start walking in the sun for about 30 minutes a day. I have since increased that amount to around 3 hours per day every day. I am no longer able to stay up past say 3 or 4 AM, even if I wanted to ! It is impossible!
Today, where I live (53 degrees latitude, northern hemisphere), the brightest point of the day is just about 100W/m². That converts to about 12000 lumens, but that is only at the very brightest midday hour. Before that or after that, it is only about a third of that. There are plenty of days where it doesn't even reach 100W/m².
On those days, daylight is more dim than regular lamps even at the brightest point of during the middle of the day.
If the suggestion is that I reduce my working hours drastically during the winter I'm all for it, but it is getting a little tiresome that supposed scientists completely ignore the fact that a pretty sizeable chunk of the worlds population lives pretty far north and have done so for thousands of years.
The research may very well be right, but it's not particularly useful if you don't address the fact billions of people live in areas where you're recommendation don't make sense.
This is a way of amplifying that plenty of people live north of other people. Whole countries.
It doesn't necessary.
You could rephrase the title from
> Lack of sunlight during the day is worse than [..]
to
> Lack of sunlight during the day has a larger effect on your bio rhythms then [..]
but that effect isn't per-se bad
it's bad if you life is out of sync with your bio rhythms to a point where it can have sever effects on you mental and physical health
also additionally the way various factors can affect (mainly but not exclusively) shift our bio rhythms there is also the fact that people have various "dispositions" (not the right scientific term), dispositions which also change with age and which seem to have naturally evolved to improve the survival chances of human by making sure that in a pack of human (\j) there is always someone "fit" to spot danger/react fast/etc.
the reason I'm pointing that "dispositions" out is because they can have a major affect on how likely (and more important how much) the bio rhythms of a person and their life with night shifts are out of sync
as far as someone like me who doesn't know much about sleep science can tall the most harmful think is the switch between night and day shift making your bio rhythms fall completely out of sink (leading to fun thinks like potentially constantly increasing exhaustion every day) and/or the bio rhythms not adapting to night shifts
worse as far as I can tell from personal experience there can be a big mismatch between what your bio rhythms are and what your "habits of sleep/work" are, especially if other factors like huge external stress come into play :\
Anyway examples of people living healthy lives with unusual bio rhythms (longer, shorter, shifted) are quite many.
Places that limit overnight shifts tend to have variable shifts - folks will work all three shifts, have one night a week, and so on. This definitely takes a toll on mental and physical health - just in a different way. At least with regular overnight shifts, you can get into some sort of rhythm with regular sleep and eating times.
The other solutions mean things like paying folks more so they can work fewer days (make a full time salary in 3-4 days a week), but few places are going to do that and taxpayers are going to foot some of that bill - some pretty vital places have staff at night. 911 operators, police and fire services, snow plowing, nursing homes and hospitals tend to need around the clock staffing.
You sit all day. You have poor lighting. You breath crappy air. The screen stare is damaging to your eyes. You're exposed to lots of stress and few real cognitive breaks.
You're just supposed to ignore every basic human need and best practice and grind through it. And even be thankful for the opportunity too.
Whatever you can do to improve things, is all on you. The expectations remain the same. It's more like a personal hobby, your bodies' basic needs.
Same with "mental health" that employers supposedly care about. They would never take away any root causes, instead...here's a link to an e-course.
The other is preventing an essential function, there since evolutionary times, the disturbance of which is known to be associated with all kinds of problems, from depression to various cancers and general health.
Come on
Most people on HN probably have the privilege to have grown up in a somewhat semi healthy society and now have reasonable decent jobs.
But compared to people which are semi forced to do stuff like working 24h shifts frequently or living in a area with so much noise pollution (and or danger or hunger (it's really hard to sleep if you haven't eaten anything for 30h and not much before that either)) that it's hard to sleep at all. Or which have to work 3 jobs sleeping only 4 hours a night it's really quite privileged.
A privilege which _should be the norm and not having it is inhuman_.
But if we consider that there are _many millions_ of people which do not have it calling it a privilege is sadly not absurd.
To be an elected representative, or a leader, is a privilege because if everyone was, no one would be. To be rich in absolute terms isn't a privilege, but to be richer than average is a privilege. Same with status, beauty, talent etc.
Calling things privilege which aren't, conflates things which are zero-sum and things which aren't.
We already have "Zero Sum" to describe the thing you're talking about. Privilege is a different word, which refers to "a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed by a particular person or a restricted group of people" (Dictionary.com)
You can try to fight to redefine the word, but recognize you're waging an uphill battle against how everyone else uses it
But I'm not alone or the first to insist on making the distinction.