If we define when you usually wake up as 06:00 (regardless of what time everyone else thinks it is) getting light in your eyes between 23:00 and 05:00 tends to sap motivation (the next day and the days after that) via a mechanism well-explored by neuroscientists involving signals sent from the eye to the habenula and then on to the “motivational circuits”—especially blue light and especially especially UV light, which incandescents and fluorescents emit a little of, but LED lights emit none of (so if you might shine a light in the middle of the night, make sure it is an LED light, preferably a yellowish or orange-ish one).
The same exposure to light also makes it harder to get to sleep at normal or healthy hour the next night, which tempts you to keep a light on because lying awake in the dark when you should be sleeping but cannot is boring, which of course perpetuates the cycle.
Avoiding superstimuli and avoiding light in the middle of the night are the first interventions most people should try for increasing “dopamine and consequently motivation and drive”, but there are many other levers you could pull, and Andrew Huberman seems to be an expert on the subject.
This seems like a particularly actionable version of common-sense advice! Thanks a lot, will try
If we define when you usually wake up as 06:00 (regardless of what time everyone else thinks it is) getting light in your eyes between 23:00 and 05:00 tends to sap motivation (the next day and the days after that) via a mechanism well-explored by neuroscientists involving signals sent from the eye to the habenula and then on to the “motivational circuits”—especially blue light and especially especially UV light, which incandescents and fluorescents emit a little of, but LED lights emit none of (so if you might shine a light in the middle of the night, make sure it is an LED light, preferably a yellowish or orange-ish one).
The same exposure to light also makes it harder to get to sleep at normal or healthy hour the next night, which tempts you to keep a light on because lying awake in the dark when you should be sleeping but cannot is boring, which of course perpetuates the cycle.
Avoiding superstimuli and avoiding light in the middle of the night are the first interventions most people should try for increasing “dopamine and consequently motivation and drive”, but there are many other levers you could pull, and Andrew Huberman seems to be an expert on the subject.