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Comment by burningChrome | Hacker News Reader

>> So I can let my body figure out how much sleep I need.

This is why my doctor advised (during a bout of insomnia a few years ago) not to use those "blackout" shades. They completely confuse your brain. My doctor said to sleep with the blinds open so your body can naturally reset its clock with the sunrise and sunset. Thankfully, this was in the Summer in a midwestern state, so I got back on track, but I still had to make some adjustments when daylight savings and Winter started.

Your strategy was the other recommendation my doctor said to use. Anything that allows your body to naturally find its biorhythm is the best.

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Or use a 35,000 Lumen corn light (one I use https://a.co/d/idyzuiW ). Stopped a family from falling into depression regularly throughout the year. They are fanatical about getting the light because they don't want to go back.

I don't understand what's the benefit of the light (vs a regular light)? do you have it synchronized with the sun with no way to turn it off?

The benefit of such a powerful lightsource is that you can get roughly the same amount of light you'd get from a summer sun. That seems to be what you need to stave off seasonal affective disorder.

For waking up you'd need some kind of timed control, either old-school mechanical or maybe a smart relay. I've found that a single well-placed smart bulb programmed to ramp up over the course of 15 minutes works well to wake me up, but I'm pretty sensitive to light during sleep.

As bright as those lights are, they're still no comparison to the summer sun really.

I went into a rabbit hole a while back of investigating whether it would be possible to light a room in my house equivalent to the summer sun, so I could avoid SAD during the long nights of the British winter.

Taking that 35,000 lumen light above, even assuming it's lumen rating is accurate, in a 3 by 3 metre room, that's less than 4,000 lux, and that's if it was entirely focused on the floor area. Direct sunlight is 32,000 to 100,0000 lux. The sun is just really bright. Normal indoor home lighting is about 100 lux.

The most efficient LEDs on the market are 200 lm/watt, so a reasonable lower bound for the amount of lighting you'd need for a 3x3 room is 1440 watts to get to the minimum 32k lux, but you'd have to factor in electrical inefficiencies and the directionality too.

All that being said, those corn cob bulbs are fantastic and do make you feel a lot better. Just not quite the same as relaxing on a hammock in the garden, sadly.

The benefit is that it's much much brighter. Human eyes adjust to any amount of light so they'll "look" similar, but unconsciously it makes you happier.

Where I live the days are very long during summer, and short during winter. If I wake up by sunlight it's either like 4 in the morning in summer, or soon now like after 9 in the morning.

What happens when the sun sets at 18:00 in the winter? I like the idea, but I feel like most people won't go to bed that early, and use artificial lights to go about their evening, thus negating a lot of the effort. Or am I misunderstanding?

Context: I struggle with insomnia and use blackout shades.

Artificial lights also interfere with sleep. If you’ve ever been 100% off grid, or even a place where you have minimal phone usage and little artificial light you will feel sleepy more correlated with when the sun sets, even if it’s at 1800.

I’ve found blackout shades useful for when I’m not sleeping a schedule correlated with the sun (eg work at 4 am) or external artificial light (streetlamps).

During the Winter, I tend to stay more active. I play several sports, do weight training and do indoor rock climbing to sort of wear myself out. So in Winter, I adaptively change the signals my body is using that tells it when its time to go to sleep.

My diet also changes in the Winter. I cut off caffeine at noon and restrict phone and screen time in favor of physical activities in the later afternoon. It takes about two weeks for my body to adjust fully to the changes, but then its fine throughout Winter. Even when I'm getting less sunlight because the sun is going down sooner.

I never knew how much your diet will affect your sleep and biorhythms until I started making changes. Even small changes can have big effects on your sleep cycles.

Hope that helps.

Can you elaborate a little about your diet adaption in terms of food classes (carbohydrates, fat, proteins, ...) if it isn't only the coffeine intake you modify? Thanks!

It's probably a lot more simple than what you're expecting.

In Summer I tend to have more carbs and proteins, along with bigger meals for both lunch and dinner since I tend to exercise later outside then during Winter. The extra amounts in both for energy allow me to be active longer before the sun goes down.

In the Winter, I tend to reduce carbs and front load my day with them, so that in effect, by the time the sun goes down, my body is running down on their energy stores for the day. I also tend to reduce proteins and only increase them if I have a heavy day for example if I have both weight training and some higher impact cardio like hockey or indoor rock climbing or snowboarding.

In Winter I tend to have a bigger lunch and smaller dinner which helps to focus in the reduction in energy. Generally by the time 7 or 8pm rolls around, I can feel my body starting to tune down for the day and signals my body is getting ready for sleep. A hot shower usually puts me over the edge. I can get into bed and I'm out cold in a few minutes.

Hope this helps.

Sorry, for disturbing late.. but hey, thanks for pointing out! (I don't get notifications, so I need to check for replies then and again..)

From time to time I'm looking into ketogenic diet and find it always inspiring how others manage carb and fat. I try to avoid carbs and if I eat them I always try to get my body moving, be it a light walk (so, not exactly practising full keto..). Main meal for me is dinner... I like how digestion and energy restoration is taking place mainly at night's rest. I don't experience problems falling asleep when giving my body food it needs. I'm usually not bothered by feelings of hunger til late afternoon (intermittent fasting so to speak, fat goes a long way..). Most important habit for good sleep seems to be "lay down, don't touch phone".. Hope this inspires, too :)

(eventual recommendation "the ketogenic bible, wilson/lowery")

Here in New York it's half way through November and sunset is ~16:40 today.

Most people are trying to get more sleep and stay asleep past early morning / ambient light.

"Dang, my alarm woke me up at 8:30am while I was sleeping like a baby because of my blackout shades" doesn't sound like a problem anyone is having.

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