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Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

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Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#71

Post by rileyphone »

benreesman wrote: post #59

At the risk of sparking some kind of Apple flame war: I went to the optometrist recently and my vision had abruptly tanked, I have a much stronger prescription than a year ago. “Have you been pulling long screen hours?” “Yeah. Very long.” “Well that’s why.” “Outside of cutting screen hours, is there anything else I can do?” “Get the highest DPI display you can afford and crank up the font size. Won’t help much, but i…

You can also do eye exercises, like going between focusing on something close, eg a finger, and focusing on something far away.

Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#72

Post by nostromo »

derbOac wrote: post #3

One of the things I love about the shift to LED lights has been the focus on quantifying the different characteristics of light they emit, in terms of brightness, color, and spectrum, etc. It affords customizing light in ways that were swept under the rug a bit with bulbs in the past.

The reason those didn’t matter so much in the past is because traditional light bulbs are so damn good.

Even today, as good as LEDs have gotten, their color rendering is still noticeably worse than incandescents. (The highest scores are around 80-90 CRI, an old-fashioned bulb is the standard at 100.)

Trouble dimming smoothly, harsh blues, flickering, strobing, excessive glare… all of these weren’t a problem until CFLs and LEDs, so now we need a bunch of measures to quantify our light.

Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#73

Post by diob »

beebmam wrote: post #16
MrAwesome wrote: post #6

It seems like there has been a lot of buzz lately about the importance of reducing light exposure at night and the impact it has on your health. I can certainly speak to it anecdotally - getting a nice pair of blackout curtains and putting electrical tape over the electronics LEDs in my bedroom seemed to do wonders for my sleep. A quick search for sources led me to this article, which has a nice collection of links t…

I've done the same thing and it has significantly made me feel comfier at night. There are other ways to improve your sleep quality as well! Don't use any electronic devices 30 minutes before bed or while in bed. Meditation before bed with deep slow breathing. A nice warm bath or shower. Sleeping on your side if you can. For me, none of these things helped when I was really struggling with sleep several years ago. It…

Plus one to if you're falling asleep in meetings, classes, driving, etc. please get checked for sleep apnea.

I spent too many years thinking that was normal, along with daily migraines.

Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#74

Post by benreesman »

rileyphone wrote: post #71
benreesman wrote: post #59

At the risk of sparking some kind of Apple flame war: I went to the optometrist recently and my vision had abruptly tanked, I have a much stronger prescription than a year ago. “Have you been pulling long screen hours?” “Yeah. Very long.” “Well that’s why.” “Outside of cutting screen hours, is there anything else I can do?” “Get the highest DPI display you can afford and crank up the font size. Won’t help much, but i…

You can also do eye exercises, like going between focusing on something close, eg a finger, and focusing on something far away.

I try to walk around every 15 30 minutes and stuff.

My workflow is especially dangerous in this regard because I do almost everything in the terminal so it’s especially easy to get sucked in.

I’ve known sightless hackers who were awesome, it’s definitely not game over, but it also definitely slows you down.

For most hackers our eyes and the musculature starting all the way back in your lower spine through to your fingertips is such a huge part of our livelihood. I’ve been trying to treat all of it with more care.

Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#75

Post by larrywright »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #40
larrywright wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I got this one and really like it. There are plenty of cheap ones, but this one is really nice. I will say that I don’t use the puck much except to turn it on and off. I don’t really change the color temperature or brightness. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DP7RYXV/

My 34" ultrawide sits on the bridge of my desk above 4U height of 19" rackspace, is there much scope for angling the light about? Concerned that it might reflect on gear knobs. I otherwise really like what this does, quite a high price for some LEDs, but I have no doubt it's great...

It's not super adjustable, it's really designed to illuminate the area just below the monitor (mine is actually a 43" 4K TV). It defaults to sitting at 90 degrees - straight down. It can be adjusted a little bit, but ONLY towards the monitor. This isn't terribly useful - I don't know why you'd want to do that.

As for cost, yeah it's a bit much for what it is, but the build quality reflects that. The counterweight on the back is quite nice and solid feeling.

Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#76

Post by haneul »

smcleod wrote: post #14
lawkwok wrote: post #7

Phillips Hue lights are something you think is a luxury until you get them. The ability to have light change colour temperature or dim depending on the time is so calming. Whenever I revert back to the non—colour-temperature-adjusted light, I feel like I’m in an operating room. The only thing I would note is that they are dimmer than regular lights. Having dim lights in the middle of the day really makes me sleepy.

Completely agree, fantastic lights and worth every penny, their CRI is high enough to fill out the visible light spectrum nicely - you don't get any "indoor greys" and they seem to last forever, several of my bulbs are over 10 years old and still working perfectly.

I had a contrary response to the Hue. The color rendition felt dead compared to my typical lighting from Waveform.

Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#77

Post by stephenhuey »

aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #69
abletonlive wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced about blackout curtains being healthy. Why is it that when you go camping you feel so refreshed and good when the sun comes up and wakes you up? Did our far ancestors use blackout curtains? How did they deal with the sun waking them up everyday? My guess is that it's the optimal way to wake up actually.

> Why is it that when you go camping you feel so refreshed and good when the sun comes up and wakes you up? Because alcohol induces REM sleep?

It actually reduces REM sleep:

https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/assets/info/amh/if-amh-...

Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#78

Post by larrywright »

enchiridion wrote: post #33
eblanshey wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a link to the lightbar you have?

Does it go on the top of the monitor?

Yes. These all work roughly the same - the light bar rests on top of the monitor and has a counterweight in the back to keep it there. So no adhesives or clips.

Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#79

Post by neilv »

friedman23 wrote: post #23

Lights are extremely powerful but people always seem to focus on only half the equation. Waking up to light is a million times better than waking up to sound. My lights dim and turn off around 9:30pm and turn on at 5:30 am and brighten until 6:00 am. I wake up without any grogginess at all. It's amazing.

This is the use case that'll probably get me to invest in IoT products (which I otherwise don't want in my home).

(I have one of those Philips alarm clocks with the "sunrise" light, but it doesn't light the room enough to wake me.)

Re: Investing in lighting did great things for my mental and physical health

#80

Post by philliphaydon »

sumedh wrote: post #46
pineconewarrior wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have LifX come back from the dead yet? They've been struggling super hard to get products back on the shelf and their support has been like, comatose, according to Reddit etc I really wanted to try their products because I hear the color bulbs are INSANE, but they were always out of stock, never on sale, and I heard so many horror stories...

Not sure what horror stories you have heard but supply is not too bad in Australia, I see them in stock in retail stores, I have had Lifx for a long time, still going strong.

I kick started lifx. Received 4 but had so many problems. They were crazy slow and didn’t change colour properly. I’m sure they have improved since then tho but I don’t have any use since I’m not in my own home.
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