I live in the upper midwest and, like many other places, don't get much light in the winter. I don't get much light in the summer turns out since I'm inside most of the day anyway, but winter feels worse. A couple years ago I was suggested a SAD lamp, and man did it make a difference. What I've learned this year though, is it isn't enough. It's a small square light that sits in the same place and only comes into your eye at a small angle.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>[0] <a href="https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens</a>
[1] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZHMD5ZL" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09ZHMD5ZL</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5X7XLRQ" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C5X7XLRQ</a>
For fruit flies.<p>Also, what?<p>>... 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.
Adding this to my collection of reasons why remote work is better. My home office has direct sunlight from 10:00-16:00 every day of the year. I've never been to a commercial office that comes close.
I never heard this before: "Plants produce toxins to avoid being eaten, such as psoralen, which is abundant in celery. Snacking at night introduces toxins that, at that hour, our repair systems are not ready to eliminate. There is also speculation that the major epidemic of epithelial cancers, such as colon cancer, in the U.S. is because of this."
It's amazing that, as mentioned in the interview, a question as apparently simple as "What is sleep for?" doesn't have a definitive answer in 2023.
I'm not a native English speaker yet I have objections with the use of "adapted" in this sentence<p><pre><code> 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.
</code></pre>
You adapt when the environment was in a state A and changes to state B while you are already there. When you start from "scratch" in a specific stable environment, you develop/grow in that environment, not adapt. Or not ?
If you listen to enough Huberman Labs podcasts you'll hear him talk about the importance of getting some direct sunlight in the morning on a daily basis. Here's one example: <a href="https://youtu.be/UF0nqolsNZc" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://youtu.be/UF0nqolsNZc</a><p>Also in the anecdotes folder, saw a sleep specialist with my (young adult) child and he stressed the importance of getting daily sunlight exposure.
It is december. The nights are quickly growing very long. For the next few months I will travel to work before dawn and return home after sunset. And the cold will soon mean i dont go out much during the day. If i work sat/sun during a push period i might not see sun for weeks. Since my health is therefore basically f-ed, I guess I can now take up smoking. Tell all those people working on ships and submarines that they are also free to smoke. Or, perhaps we are more adaptable than we think and annual cycles of darkness are no more dangerous than any number of lifestyles factors. Id bet good money that my risk of skin cancer drops considerably in winter.
My sleep schedule used to just permanently drift forward and it was super awful towards having any kind of regular lifestyle and work was borderline impossible.<p>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!
Even when I lived 60 degrees North of the equator and it was regularly -40 for a daytime high, I always went for a walk on my lunchbreak. Usually the coldest days are the sunniest, and I always felt better for having the sun on my face.
I really noticed the days I wasn't able to - I felt horrible at the end of the day.
I live in Northern Europe and in this time of years it is not uncommon to have cloudy days with little light (you need lights on indoors) for weeks at a time. I wonder people from before artificial lighting had adaptions to lower light levels.
Honestly, human work conditions continue to be primitive, even for "privileged" office jobs.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
I mean, it's kind of obvious. One is some extra light frequencies that might or might not disturb sleep.<p>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.