[HN Gopher] The timeless, futile effort to fix circadian rhythms...
___________________________________________________________________
The timeless, futile effort to fix circadian rhythms with tech
Author : nobet
Score : 45 points
Date : 2022-06-02 16:32 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reallifemag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (reallifemag.com)
| bergenty wrote:
| Terry_Roll wrote:
| I think Nasa did an experiment with some people living
| underground for a few months or something, the TLDR was the
| people living underground ending up living a 30hr day.
|
| Tryptophan supplementation increases the effect of blue light on
| the body. However I see an increase in mesenchymal stem cell
| release through an increase in melatonin to be good thing unlike
| stem cells from adipose tissue, and melatonin is 4x more potent
| as an antioxidant than vitamin C.
|
| The Circadian rhythms are probably best viewed as the chemical
| decay of various chemical pathways in the body much like particle
| decay is for physics.
|
| Diet and light can influence them but be mindful of the fact the
| human body has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to
| this planets light cycle and environment, so any deviation like
| we see with todays tech can have erroneous effects on the body.
| 0des wrote:
| hear me out... 30 hour days.
|
| http://www.30hd.org/
| ntoskrnl wrote:
| I support this initiative, but I'm not looking forward to the
| 22-hour workdays.
| [deleted]
| ldoughty wrote:
| you get 8 hours a day not working?!? :-)
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| My medium/low tech solution was to get LED lightbulbs than can
| dim and turn red while also downloading apps like f.lux which
| likewise turn my monitor dim and red shifted. The idea was to
| switch my environment to a darkroom about two hours before my bed
| time. I figured that low light would still allow me to see while
| allowing my biology to start the nighttime wind-down process. I
| was inspired by the lighting in film processing, figuring that
| low red light allows people to see while not chemically
| interacting with the pigments sensitive to visible light. So it
| seemed like it might also work the same way on the light sensing
| cells responsible for circadian rhythms.
|
| The result is that I start to feel tired naturally while also
| avoiding the psychological tug of wanting to stay up later and
| later. Trying to immediately disconnect from my bright screens is
| difficult, but if I feel like I am gradually and naturally
| getting more tired in a dark room, it's not the same and I much
| more readily disconnect. Sometimes I even go to bed early because
| I feel satisfied with my time wasting.
|
| I highly recommend other people give this method a shot.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| Any preferred brands on LED lightbulbs? Have gotten good
| mileage just out of f.lux for roughly the same reasons, would
| be glad to take it to the next level.
| simcop2387 wrote:
| I personally use some home depot branded zigbee bulbs myself.
| They only do the white temp changing and not rgb but they
| work rather well in my lamps and other fixtures. I use Home
| Assistant to do it but I suspect it could be done with any
| smart home system that supports zigbee lights.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I'm using Philips Hue, and I'm quite satisfied with them.
| That being said, I know there are way more options to choose
| from now compared to when I bought these bulbs about three
| years ago. I'd recommend checking out a local lighting supply
| store and playing around with the options. Best Buy and
| Lowe's carry smart lights but I think they're starting to
| only carry one or two brands. You'll get more exposure from a
| specialty LED supplier.
| brnt wrote:
| It amazes me that so many people don't instinctively know that
| artificial light is tiring.
|
| I use as little as possible of it. If it's dark, it's dark.
| It's not something we need to fear (anymore).
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Concur. Color and brightness-changing LED bulbs make a big
| difference.
|
| Google passive-aggressively reminding me on my phone to set a
| consistent bed time doesn't mitigate the reality of a changing
| work cycle.
| actionablefiber wrote:
| I did the exact same thing with the exact same source of
| inspiration! Worked wonders.
| simcop2387 wrote:
| I did the same thing once I started really playing with Home
| Assistant. There's a wonderful little add-
| on/integration/whatever name you use now called Adaptive
| Lighting that can use those kinds of bulbs to change the
| temperature automatically as the day goes on (either fixed
| times, or with the sun). Not only do I not have to do it myself
| but I have them all timed with f.lux (and other computer and
| phone versions) so that it just all happens without me
| noticing. I can't say I notice a huge difference in my sleep
| but it does end up making all the lighting more pleasant all
| the time since it'll match (as close as you can) with sunlight
| during the day around noon and then start setting with the sun
| until it's about as red as everything can go after sundown.
|
| https://community.home-assistant.io/t/new-adaptive-lighting-...
| MonkeyClub wrote:
| Weird parallel: Apple ][ ad copy would include monitoring your
| biorhythms amongst the things you could do with it.
| emptybits wrote:
| Yeah, I recall that also. Apple itself published a biorhythm
| program.[1] (A pic and WAV file are there!) Many 8-bit computer
| demos showed off their hi-res graphics with a classic biorhythm
| plot of three overlapping sines.
|
| We know now though, as we basically did back then, that
| biorhythm theories have never been validated[2] but circadian
| rhythms are verifiable and appear to be a real feature of
| animal sleeping and eating patterns.
|
| [1]
| https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20P...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biorhythm_(pseudoscience)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-06-02 23:01 UTC)