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Comment by Helmut10001 | Hacker News Reader

Regarding the recommendation to not spend the first hour of the day in front of the screen. I found the other way around more helpful: Not spending the last 1-2 hours in front of screens. This helps me to get better sleep. In the morning, I find it not so difficult and screen time (+coffee) helps me to wake up slowly.

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No screen before bedtime/no screens in bed is like the easiest health improvement hack that anyone can implement.

With that said, anecdotally I can vouch for the "no screen in the first hour" suggestion the article is making. I've been working for home for the past few years, and I feel more sluggish since I just move to my laptop first thing in the morning, instead of having that preparation-breakfast-commute routine. Granted I live in a walkable city so commute doesn't mean what it means in SV, but it's the same idea.

When the pandemic forced me to work from home, incorporating a 20 minute morning walk in the neighborhood before work was one of the first things I added to my routine. It's great to make the 'transition' and also starts up the body faster.

I try and avoid screens before sleep but also use a Kindle for reading before sleeping - wondering if the e-ink displays count as screen time in studies like this?

LED backlight might. If no backlight probably fine.

Yeah but you need some light in order to read, and most lights are LED nowadays. That said, I have a Philips wake-up light that has a very pleasant yellow and dimmable light. I wonder what its frequency is though, some cheaper leds don't blink fast enough and especially when I'm tired it's noticeable. I just checked it with the slow-mo camera of my phone, my overhead lamps have a visible flickering, but the wake-up light has an interesting shuttering / interlacing effect, when I up the brightness (which increases brightness and shifts the light more to white) it seems to alternate between a white and orange light source. Might be multiple bulbs interlacing.

Anyway, LED backlight shouldn't be a problem if it's not white light. Best to have some additional light in the room though, to reduce contrast / eye strain between the screen and the background.

What about yellow(ish) backlight? I switched to Kobo bc of that

No, only actually candlelight is fine. Ideally an open fire. However reading itself is unnatural so it can only lead to negative outcomes..

This is surely sarcastic, right?

I take it you you’re sarcastic but natural is dying at age twenty from a broken leg, miss me with natural living

I know it's just an example, but it didn't take modern medicine for us not to die of broken legs at twenty. There's some risks sure, but the norm was presumably lying down and resting because it (especially doing anything else) bloody hurts, it gradually healing, and then varying degrees of hobbling for the rest of life because it healed without a splint.

(And then it wouldn't be that surprising I don't think if we figured out splints long before anything you might call medicine.)

We didn’t need modern medicine to heal broken bones but for sure more than what was „naturally“ available.

You can switch out broken bones for „being dragged from the campfire into the dark and devoured“ - another natural occurrence that I gladly live without

IIRC, most of the evidence regarding screens before bed being detrimental were focused on the "blue light" thing, so a warmer light is probably better.

(I think the science behind blue light being bad for us is still up for debate, but it's hard for me to ignore the amount of anecdata I've heard, including my own experience using flux and the like)

Blue light has been shown to affect alertness in the evening in 13 young men here https://journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10.1152/japplphysio...

Would be interested in studies refuting this.

From anecdotal experience, it makes essentially no difference.

I read for an hour or two before bed every night. Paper, kindle, or my current iPad mini make no real difference to my sleep.

Dim lights, relaxing, and trying to clear my brain of distractions other than what I’m reading make more of a difference. It’s almost but not quite like meditation.

I think both make sense. Although I go through phases of following it. I find that in the first few hours of the morning, I prefer to limit inputs to things I don't have control over but instead achieve some small to do list items (starting with making bed). Things I know I can get done and build some momentum. A few hours of productivity gives me enough momentum to take in external inputs.

I am the first one to wake up (with an alarm) in my house on weekdays. I also find the light from the phone actually helps me wake up slowly. If I don't wake up early (get ready myself) and get the kids ready for school, it'll have a cascading effect on the whole day, so screen time works for me for that purpose. And it's usually only 10-15 minutes max. In that time, I don't see or do work stuff. Since, we have family around the world, I usually just go through the family chat messages, some light social etc in that time. I get why it's a bad habit but I also have a reason why it works. On weekends, of course the alarms are off and I wake up when I wake up.

I open the lichess app in bed and do chess puzzles. Not even 2 minutes and I'm out like a light.

What do you do instead of TV/Computer before bed?

What about a nice book?

I read but every night for 1-2hours? No way.

There's also chores, talking with people, board games, going for a walk, a bath, sex, exercise, just doing nothing in particular for a bit, etc. The choice isnt only screens or books.

Doing the dishes is a nice balance of meditative, boring, and feeling accomplished. A good nightly chore.

Exercise can backfire in terms of sleep. A bit earlier in the day and it's great. But not right before bed, at least not in my experience.

What's so strange about that as a concept? As someone who grew up in the 90s, the idea of doing so is totally normal for me. I mean, I don't do it, but I wouldn't blink at someone else saying they did.

How do you think people achieve the goal of 50 books in a year, for example?

I read but 50 books in a year? No way.

That's only ~1 book a week, which seems perfectly doable? Definitely if we're talking about spending 1-2h/d on it.

It's literally a thing people do, sometimes specifically because it forces them to disconnect in their down time outside of work.

I could do 1-2 books in a day if I made time for it like I used to.

Also a 90s kid.

I hated going to bed as a child (all that wasted time!) but my parents cleverly said I could read in bed if I wanted to stay up.

I usually fell asleep within an hour or two anyway, and I ended up reading a huge number of books, which served me well.

My wife and I sometimes read together before bed now. It definitely aids sleep.

Why not? You can make reading a habit if you want to. I find it highly rewarding and glad I have this habit instead of something else like scrolling social media.

Not disparaging your hobby, its just not for me. I already read enough

Not sure if you are being facetious. I'll put my hand up as someone who reads at least an hour at night before going to sleep. Like anything it becomes normal eventually.

As a matter of fact I'll put my phone away and get my book out.

Good night! :)

i listen to audiobooks -- because i can get some "book time" to myself without having to strain my eyes.

You might be interested in this collection: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/wiki/index/#wiki_how_to_use_...

/r/nosurf is a good start (but isn't particularly a high quality sub)

Nice resource, thanks

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