Sleeping with Your Gadgets On

<i>How to block all blue light from your devices</i><p>I can&#x27;t help but think &#x27;turn them off&#x27; is the most obvious answer here. The author seems to think he <i>needs</i> the iPad&#x2F;laptop to fall asleep. Well, that&#x27;s simply being untruthful to yourself. It&#x27;s just a habit, and with some correct training (and eventually even seeing a psychologist) he can replace it with another, probably healthier, habit. Like reading a book or meditation.

Thanks to this article, today I learned that there&#x27;s a name for the thing I have, &quot;delayed sleep disorder.&quot;<p>I became an entrepreneur at age 22 not because I wanted to change the world, but because I just wasn&#x27;t able to wake up early enough for a &quot;real job.&quot; I figured there had to be a way to make the same amount of money I was making at the time, but keep my own hours. I always tell people I have &quot;vampire hours.&quot;<p>I&#x27;m 38 years old now. I typically go to sleep around 4am+ every night and wake up around 11am or noon. I usually don&#x27;t take meetings before 1pm and have unknowingly designed my life and career around this disorder.<p>I was also diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, which, according to Wikipedia, is linked to this sleep disorder.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder</a>

I have flux on my desktop, but I&#x27;ll be looking for a filter for my iphone. (Edit: I like the orange glasses idea better.)<p>Here&#x27;s what I do: an alarm goes off at 10:30pm and I take melatonin. If I actually shun devices, I can eventually sleep. But my brain is curious and wants to browse. I try to tell myself that I can in the morning. That sometimes works.<p>Lately I&#x27;ve been tracking my sleep with &quot;sleep time&quot;. I also have a folder of sleeping and hypnosis apps that I cycle through. They talk me through relaxing muscles, calming my thoughts, deep breathing, binaral beats... I&#x27;ve sleeped better lately and actually look forward to it some.<p>Also exercise seems to help, if I do. (Edit: I&#x27;m enjoying the other tips here, thanks.)

For blocking blue light, instead of filtering the devices, just filter your eyes:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Uvex-S1933X-Eyewear-SCT-Orange-Anti-Fog/dp/B000USRG90/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Uvex-S1933X-Eyewear-SCT-Orange-Anti-Fo...</a><p>I&#x27;ve been wearing those for ~2 hours before sleeping and they work very well.

I&#x27;m asleep in about 10 minutes and so can you: - no computer, tablet, tv 60 minutes before the bed.. - no lights in the bedroom - breath-in &amp; breath-out while counting from 100 to 1<p>:)

In a similar vein, I&#x27;ve had problems sleeping all my life. The easiest solution was exercise, I began rollerblading to&#x2F;from work as well as pretty much everywhere (~ 15-20km per day). During that period it never took more than a minute or two to fall asleep.<p>Now I live in a city with laws against roller blading in the street and cobbled pavements, so once I again I&#x27;m insomniac.<p>I shall try the articles suggestions

What would work just as well for the author would be simply listening to audiobooks.<p>He says &quot;For me falling asleep takes a cooling down period where my mind slowly disengages. That’s why watching old TV shows is so effective; it gives me something to focus on without letting me really engage.&quot;<p>You can get the same effect by listening to an audiobook, without having to worry about the glow of a screen at all. I use a cheap dollar-store speaker tucked under my pillow, where the muffled drone of the book is still distinct and listenable, but just soporific enough to lull me to sleep. The only thing to remember is to set a timer so it turns off, rather then continuing on for hours and potentially waking you up again.

What helped me was stopping drinking coffee. Even one cup in the morning. Two days of headache, two weeks of not being focused and suddenly I can actually fall asleep at 11pm.<p>Before that my brain was too alert up to ~1am.

&gt; <i>That’s why watching old TV shows is so effective; it gives me something to focus on without letting me really engage.</i><p>This is what I&#x27;ve been doing for years, there&#x27;s probably about 20 films that I must&#x27;ve seen dozens of times each, and a few TV shows that I know and like enough to be able to watch time and time again without needing to focus on exciting plot twists because I already know them. Works really well for me, but this is the first time I&#x27;ve come across another person doing the same thing.

&quot;LPT: Have sleep-onset insomnia (difficulty falling asleep)? Stop thinking with words and think with images instead.&quot;<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/LifeProTips/comments/1uy56a/lpt_have_sleeponset_insomnia_difficulty_falling/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;LifeProTips&#x2F;comments&#x2F;1uy56a&#x2F;lpt_have...</a><p>I’m not sure if there is any evidence backing this up. Trying this myself didn’t work too well because my eyes tend to seize a little bit when I try to &#x27;think with images&#x27;.

Congrats on finding something that works. If you ever want to try reading again, try rereading books. It works pretty similarly to how old TV shows work for you (at least for me). As long as you stick to simple to read books (stuff designed for young adults but still interesting to adults works well: Ender&#x27;s Game, The Hobbit, The Phantom Tollbooth, etc.)

A blue light is also good for dealing with jet lag. Here&#x27;s one from Philips that has a rechargeable battery and is portable:<p><a href="http://www.truesunmedical.com/blue-light/53-philips-golite-blu-sad-light.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.truesunmedical.com&#x2F;blue-light&#x2F;53-philips-golite-b...</a>

I&#x27;ve been a f.lux fanatic for a long time. Recently, though, I&#x27;ve been getting headaches that seem to be relieved by turning it <i>off</i>. I think it has something to do with getting a variety of color input rather than mostly red or mostly blue, but an expert I am not.

I find my solution more practical -- I flip the devices onto my desk face down&#x2F;put into sleep mode

There are mentions in this article of tricks that may or may not work for you, but in any case, do try F.lux if you haven&#x27;t already. It&#x27;s very, very great when working late on the screen.

So why not just get blue blocker glasses so you don&#x27;t have to filter everything in the house individually???

On your mac you can use alt+shift+dim to get 4ths of the normal box.