Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

sevarg.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 316 posts

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#31

Post by ianai »

Syonyk wrote: post #16
adammarples wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Candles also supposedly awful for PM 2.5

They are. Any sort of "open flame burner" is likely to emit an awful lot of PM 2.5. However, most of the lanterns (think your standard "hurricane lantern" or "cold blast lantern") are quite clean burning. I've been using lanterns for a while now, and I have the equipment to measure PM2.5 and PM10 (post author here, you can find reviews of my lanterns and my particulate sensors elsewhere on my blog). The lanterns are…

How about the fake candles?

I went through a period where as soon as I got home and out of the shower I’d go dark. I had a battery powered lamp that I used exclusively. I’d wear an eye mask with something to listen to playing. It definitely helped. I can definitely feel blue light waking me up much more easily than red. (Worked swing shift until midnight at that point.)

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#32

Post by econonut »

Syonyk wrote: post #29
adamwong246 wrote: post #20

People think I am weird for cranking the Night Shift setting on my mac to the max but it really helps. Sure wish we had better e-ink screens.

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."

On a recent renovation of our home, my wife and I decided to upgrade all of our lighting to LEDs with adjustable color temperatures. In the morning, and during the day, our house is illuminated with 5000k, but in the evening when we're preparing dinner the color temp is lowered down to 3500k and then down further to 2700k after dinner. It's much easier on our eyes and it feels like it's made a difference, but after reading through this it seems we likely still have some of the blue light coming through at night. Could you recommend a (inexpensive) spectrometer for testing our lights?

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#33

Post by moozilla »

api wrote: post #24

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is all the supplementation with melatonin people are doing. Does ingested melatonin still have the same protective effects?

I was also surprised to not see this discussed in the article. Melatonin supplementation seems like the obvious solution given how cheap and easily available it is. It can also go hand-in-hand with interventions the author suggests like f.lux or using dimmer lights.

Lots of good discussion and links to studies about efficacy here: https://gwern.net/melatonin tl;dr - yes it works and is much easier/cheaper than other things

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#34

Post by [deleted] »

karmaMeansCool wrote: post #15

There are also probably very personal and biological variables involved too that the post doesn't mention. I stare into monitors and phones all day long. Every light in the house is full-blown LED. I can't help but fall asleep at 20:00 in an led lit room watching led TVs, while my led phone drops onto the floor after I've fallen asleep. I've been in an extreme LED environment for over a decade and never have problems…

[deleted]

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#35

Post by piazz »

jahsome wrote: post #21
karmaMeansCool wrote: post #15

There are also probably very personal and biological variables involved too that the post doesn't mention. I stare into monitors and phones all day long. Every light in the house is full-blown LED. I can't help but fall asleep at 20:00 in an led lit room watching led TVs, while my led phone drops onto the floor after I've fallen asleep. I've been in an extreme LED environment for over a decade and never have problems…

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 fro…

You sound like me (unfortunately).

Did you ever find anything that helped?

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#36

Post by colordrops »

Syonyk wrote: post #29
adamwong246 wrote: post #20

People think I am weird for cranking the Night Shift setting on my mac to the max but it really helps. Sure wish we had better e-ink screens.

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."

And what reflected light would you use with your e-ink display?

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#37

Post by boc »

adammarples wrote: post #12
zachruss92 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also did an interview with a person from the NIMH who personally only uses candle light past dark. It makes sense when you think about it. Also apparently overhead lights are worse- the angle makes a difference.

Candles also supposedly awful for PM 2.5

What about pilot lights on a stove/oven? I have an old-school unit in my house that has three pilot lights that are always on... the put off a fair bit of heat. I don't love the idea of them burning constantly from an energy standpoint, but I didn't consider the health effects...

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#38

Post by khazhoux »

000ooo000 wrote: post #5

Andrew Huberman of Huberman Lab podcast discusses this in the first 4-5 episodes of the podcast. The takeaway is: it's late-night bright light, rather than blue light, that has effects on the circadian rhythm. It's an appeal to authority but I think I'll go with the professor of neurobiology and opthalmology on this one.

Indeed, even after reading several of the studies cited here and elsewhere, this whole idea of blue light > specialized photoreceptors > melatonin production > sleep (not to mention cancer) seems like just correlations stacked on top of each other.

I understand that some people have problems sleeping, but saying blue wavelengths are a general hazard to sleep (not to mention cancer) is absurd.

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#39

Post by coldtea »

Syonyk wrote: post #28
mhb wrote: post #22

I don't understand the graph of Irradiance vs. Wavelength for an ebook vs. print book. It looks like the print book was read in the dark? Help.

It looks at the emitted energy from the screen. The ebook emits directly, a foot from your face. The paper book is reflected energy, at a rather higher reflectance and a rather lower energy. It's amazing how dim a light you can read a paper book in vs an e-ink ereader.

Photons are photons, reflected or not.

So what prevents the ebook to lower the brightness of backlight to match the energy of the reflected light from a paper book?

(For e-ink ebook readers, can't they just be read without backlight, with just reflected light?)

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#40

Post by e12e »

Interesting article - but I'm left to wonder how it applies to where I live - we have a two month polar day in summer - but AFAIK no increased incidence of cancer. Some people certainly struggle with polar day (and night in winter) - but 10 000 plus years of human habitation seem to indicate white nights aren't such a big deal?

There's a lot of research going on effects in humans - but admittedly I'm not really up to date.

I do recall this one that's tangentially releated:

"A circadian clock is not required in an arctic mammal" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20226667/

Post reply on HN