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LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

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Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#101
post #99

For the "just take melatonin" crowd: some of us can't. Its contraindicated for high blood pressure. and, for some people causes florid dreams (not always welcome) and "restless legs"

Is "florid dreams" a thing (Google didn't come up with anything meaningful)? Did you mean lucid dreams (though for the life of me, I can't understand why that wouldn't be welcomed).

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#102

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 mean the problem with many of the studies quoted and referred to in the article is that they are about correlation but fail to show causation outside of "that seems right if you approach it with a mind which has already been biased to believe it".

For example night work independent of light has _a lot_ of ways it can negatively affect people, cause stress and in turn increase the risk of cancer.

And while the relationship between melatonin and blue light does exist the magnitude of it's effect (compared to other factors) is much less clear and might vary hugely between people.

Especially when it comes to reasons why you sleep is bad there are docents non melatonin related problems of which the negative effect can by far outweigh any melatonin difference caused by blue light.

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#103

The ebook reader part is kind of disturbing, I have a warm mode on mine that I always use, and the brightness set as low as it'll go (I find it too bright, but they seem to use a linear scale so there's not much range of adjustment). I have a red LED striplight above my bed for reading paper books so I will try using that for the ebook reader and see if I notice a difference. My main issue is that interesting ebooks…

If you are using all red then it shouldn't be the light affecting you, only the content and the interactiveness that ereader provides.

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#105
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I can relate deeply to this. Spent the last 2 years trying to get treatment for what turned out to be a neurological sleep movement disorder with an insomnia component. Basically I have sometimes ~150 involuntary limb movements/hr during sleep, they sometimes wake me up but even if they don't I wake up exhausted. Things are getting better with medication finally, but yeah I've learned not to bring my sleep issues up…

How did you get that diagnosed?

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#106

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…

N = 1

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#107
Regarding the quoted e-book study:

> Third, in the present study, the LE-eBook was set to maximum brightness throughout the 4-h reading session, whereas, by comparison, the print-book condition consisted of reflected exposure to very dim light.

Yeah, max brightness is probably going to make an impact. I bet if you were in a room with a bright light reading a book, with an equivalent amount of lumens going into your eyeballs, you'd probably have a tough time sleeping. This study seems like it was set up to generate a certain set of results. I wonder how it would look if the quantity of light was controlled for.

Additionally, the comparisons to the incandescent spectrum and the freaking out about the blue peaks (which seem pretty small) was over the top. The incandescent spectrum contains blue, and the "peak" of the other spectra would contain an equivalent integral of blue light as compared to a slightly brighter incandescent light.

Just turn the lights down low at night and get some warm spectrum bulbs and you'll be okay.

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#108
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're willing, it would also be interesting to hear how the Bedtime Bulb from a past Show HN fares: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18011075

Do you know how to order one without Amazon? I'm... rather opposed to them. In every possible way one could consider. I would love to poke with one, but if the only way to buy one is through Amazon, I'm quite unlikely to actually obtain one. I genuinely don't care if I have to pay a bit more, I hate what Amazon has done to retail.

Hi there, if you're interested, you can pick one up from here: https://shop.bedtimebulb.com/products/restful-bedtime-bulb

Thanks! Greg, Bedtime Bulb founder

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#109
post #101
post #99

For the "just take melatonin" crowd: some of us can't. Its contraindicated for high blood pressure. and, for some people causes florid dreams (not always welcome) and "restless legs"

Is "florid dreams" a thing (Google didn't come up with anything meaningful)? Did you mean lucid dreams (though for the life of me, I can't understand why that wouldn't be welcomed).

Happens for me. Not lucid. Never thought about it but florid seems like a good word for it (I'd guess at adjectives like vivid, emotional, confusing)

Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night

#110
post #101
post #99

For the "just take melatonin" crowd: some of us can't. Its contraindicated for high blood pressure. and, for some people causes florid dreams (not always welcome) and "restless legs"

Is "florid dreams" a thing (Google didn't come up with anything meaningful)? Did you mean lucid dreams (though for the life of me, I can't understand why that wouldn't be welcomed).

I don't know the term either, but I experience what the parent poster said. I've tried melatonin, and it gives me crazy vivid dreams that keep up the feeling of stress. It doesn't rest the brain, it's more like being knocked out by concussion, and it takes hours to reset and wake up and get back to functioning.
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