Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am disappointed that many phones/tablets don't go very dim. From flagship to cheap, it seems that if you're in a pitch black room and check the time on your phone, the light will illuminate the whole room, even on the dimmest setting. I actually modded my phone by putting a resistor in the LED backlight circuit, which divided the brightness by 1000 - and it was still plenty bright at night (human eyes are logarithm…
iOS actually has a hard to find setting that lets you make the screen super dim. It's been a lifesaver when using my phone in the evening. To enable it go to Settings -> Accessibility -> Zoom and then tap the Zoom toggle switch. Once that's enabled iOS will now bring up a super secret popup menu whenever you double tap the screen with three fingers. From the little popup menu go to Choose Filter -> Low Light and your…
LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
211–220 of 316 posts
Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
You sound like me (unfortunately). Did you ever find anything that helped?
Not a solution that works or is available to everyone, but for me, small doses of marijuana taken just before bed has changed my world. I’m currently traveling and in a state where that isn’t an option and I haven’t had more then 4 hours in each of the past few nights. Will be glad to get some rest tomorrow.
I've also had bad insomnia most of my life (and a non-24 hour circadian rhythm starting somewhat over a decade later). Early on it seemed to be anxiety/racing thoughts related and what finally mostly prevented that part for me was meditation. I still occasionally stay awake due to racing thoughts but not often. Unfortunately, that didn't ultimately help with the insomnia, which got somewhat worse (or at least different) over time :(.
The meditation method I used goes like this:
1) In general, althernate between focusing your attention on your breath as it touches your skin above your mouth (since it does that all the time you can kind of feel it and not feel it at the same time) and either active or passive muscle relaxation (mostly active unless you are getting tired enough not to feel like it).
2) For active relaxation, tense muscles in one group a time (I doubt the exact organization matters, I think I used three or four groups: arms and hands, core muscles, legs, and possibly feet) for several seconds and then feel the contrasting relaxation for a while after you release them. For passive, just tell yourself you are relaxing those particular muscles and try to feel them relax.
3) The time split between focusing on your breath and relaxing muscles doesn't matter, if you are having trouble focusing on your breath then just switch to a relaxation cycle.
4) For getting to sleep, wandering thoughts are fine. What you want to avoid is strong emotional reactions to your thoughts, including a feedback loops such as where something feels like an excitingly good idea (when you are half asleep and not so good at evaluating what is a good idea) and that leads to other thoughts that feel like good ideas or building on the same idea. If you really thing something is a good idea get out of bed and write it down along with enough follow up throughts to find the same stream of thought the next day (should it prove interesting to do so, which is not usually the case in my experience). Otherwise go back to the relaxation/breath cycle when you notice you have a stronger emotional reaction to your thoughts. Other feedback loops include remembering past mistakes or bad events (which can either then go to moment by moment recall of one event or remind you of other similarish situations) and focusing on a difficult current situation (again either going into detail about the current situation or often recalling any memory connected to anyone or anything involved in the situation). It may (or may not) be helpful to think of it as a type of internal drug addiction and you are trying to recognize when drugs that keep you awake are released internally rather than noticing particular thoughts.
5) Visualization can make it easier get to sleep if you are able to do it, so you can try imagining yourself on a warm beach as you do the breath focus and relaxation. I can usually only do that when I am about to get to sleep, if I happen to think of it (and noticing I'm about to get to sleep can make it harder to actually get to sleep :( ). Also, make sure you are actually sufficiently warm (and not too warm if you can avoid it) since that can sometimes be surprisingly difficult to notice even if it is keeping you awake.
6) I didn't become a world class meditator over the decades I've had insomnia, I mostly just try to use it when I notice racing thoughts, which is not that often these days (infrequent enough to not always think of it when it does happen :( ). I think it was 5-10 years that I meditated frequently before racing thoughts were rarely an issue, although it was very quickly obvious that it was helping. I've lately been thinking that I should try it again more regularly to see if it could help some even without racing thoughts (however, I don't think the circadian issue is affected much if at all by the meditation).
Some people find a formal Cognative Behavioral Therapy course to be helpful (or reading books that cover the same techniques), however some of the techniques won't work at all if you have circadian issues (and could make the circadian issues worse).
Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
iOS actually has a hard to find setting that lets you make the screen super dim. It's been a lifesaver when using my phone in the evening. To enable it go to Settings -> Accessibility -> Zoom and then tap the Zoom toggle switch. Once that's enabled iOS will now bring up a super secret popup menu whenever you double tap the screen with three fingers. From the little popup menu go to Choose Filter -> Low Light and your…
Do you know does this actually lower the backlight or is it changing gamma or something like that. I'll try it anyways thanks
On an old LCD display there are some filters that do a linear/nonlinear mapping from 0->255 brightness to 0->64 for example, leaving the actual backlight at the same brightness. The downside is that colour banding and quantization start to get really bad - and 'black' starts to look very non-black.
Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
#214Regarding 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 e…
I am disappointed that many phones/tablets don't go very dim. From flagship to cheap, it seems that if you're in a pitch black room and check the time on your phone, the light will illuminate the whole room, even on the dimmest setting. I actually modded my phone by putting a resistor in the LED backlight circuit, which divided the brightness by 1000 - and it was still plenty bright at night (human eyes are logarithm…
My iPhone can go super dim, to the point that it's hard to see in a dark room. I use no special features.
Also, Kobo's eBook readers can go very very dim, and can be comfortably read in a zero light room. The max brightness I use is 29%-31%, dependent on lighting. My reader has a fixed light, but newer ones also adjust light temperature automagically, and much more comfortable to read (got one as a present for my dad).
Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
#215Regarding 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 e…
Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
#216Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
#217This is my favourite fact from this write up and makes so much sense. Overall though the article now has me anxious about my screens etc.
Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
#218Regarding 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 e…
I am disappointed that many phones/tablets don't go very dim. From flagship to cheap, it seems that if you're in a pitch black room and check the time on your phone, the light will illuminate the whole room, even on the dimmest setting. I actually modded my phone by putting a resistor in the LED backlight circuit, which divided the brightness by 1000 - and it was still plenty bright at night (human eyes are logarithm…
Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
#219Regarding 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 e…
I’m really turned off by how there’s zero critical consideration of their quoted research. They’re just hammering you over the head with quantity. Sleep is like diet where there’s virtually no scientific consensus on even the most basic things. Plenty of studies which conclude “more research is needed”, though. That leaves people free to cherry pick and go deep into the weeds with crazy the-world-is-falling theories.…
Re: LED lighting badly suppresses human melatonin production at night
#220Regarding 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 e…
If that was the aim of the study, then it could be reasonable to max brightness vs paper to distinguish between light/brain activity.