LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

I've battled the opposite in the form of clinical, anxiety-driven insomnia my whole life. I've found it utterly debilitating at times and have quite literally struggled since birth, long before electronics and LEDs were common.

I can confidently say you're so right about the number (and type) of variables. Sleep hygiene as we say in the biz is a very complex and personal issue.

I've tried everything under the sun from strict routine, screen avoidance, both abstinence from and ample sex, more reading, less reading, zero caffeine, limited caffeine, ALL THE CAFFEINE, changes to diet, fasting, supplements, and even medication.

There are usually relatively minor, short lived improvements but it's only a matter of time before I'm spending my nights once again staring at the ceiling, mind at full-tilt.

Whenever sleep comes up in conversation, and I mention my struggles, I feel like invariably I'm met with a response along the lines of "you _just_ have to...", and "have you ever tried ...?" followed by some arbitrary rule or herbal remedy.

Since about the the introduction of the first iPad, consensus seems to have formed the root of all sleep evil is screentime.

Sleep (for some) is an incredibly sensitive and personal struggle. Alarmist "mankind is doomed!" make it even harder to understand the greater picture.

It's closely related to diet. There's always some fad trending, and a number of people who find success in choosing a "better" diet almost always have a system they'll fervently claim is The Way.

The science is relatively clear on light though. I just appear to be some form of mutant.

I have been following OLED lights for a while and they seem to have fizzled out from a consumer perspective. Unfortunate as I would love to install them in my house.

Thanks for the reply! I don't want to be overly critical and I agree it's important. And yes trying to keep things briefer matters too and is something I often struggle with. I just don't think the tradeoffs were quite right. The alarmism approach has gotten overdone, because in terms of percentages there are lots of things we just live with that are "killing us" by the measures you use there. I deal a fair amount with things like network/computer security that have long been seen as low priority cost centers, and it's always challenging to be in a "proving a negative" or "black swan" sort of area where the default result is nothing happens. I've found in those contexts it's important to chart a middle course between complacency and exhaustion/defeatism. For a long time I was most worried about getting any attention at all, but I've found over the last few years that it's also easy for people to start to feel so overwhelmed that they just give up and yolo it so to speak. So an approach of "this is real, but we can make real progress and it doesn't have to be perfect and here's how" can be effective. Or even a "here's what to ask for/look for over the next few years".

One bit of luck in this specific case is that we do have some relatively decent, relatively easy numbers. "Demand to know CRI & R9, and look for ones that are 80-100 in both, the higher the better" is doable for non-experts and not that far off together I think.

>But as far as actionable measures... I did put those in there. Incandescents, on dimmers, in evening spaces.

I don't consider that actionable myself frankly. Can be an option for "those who are really worried right now" sure, but I don't think most people are ever going back to this, and indeed even finding incandescents at all is going to become harder and harder. How many people have dimmers installed at all in general? How many know how to? How many will go to the effort, vs changing a light bulb? The energy savings and other advantages of LED-based lighting (particularly smart lighting) are too strong. If you present this as one-or-the-other, I think the vast majority are just going to write this off as the same category as various chemical hazards that don't seem like there is much individuals can do conveniently and is stressful to think about and thus people choose not to think about it.

I have found if I work hard, exercise my mind and body, I can fall asleep in about seven minutes and sleep for a solid six.

I go to bed at Ten. Up at 4:30am. My sleep score averages 81.

It helps, certainly. At least with my experience (post author), it doesn't actually fix the problem.

There are a variety of e-ink HDMI displays out there, though. They're simply "very, very expensive."