I’ve found lighting, melatonin, and caffiene regulation to be wonderful additions to my sleep regime. I take melatonin pretty consistently at around 8:30 pm, and it seems like it helps make me sleepy ~45 minutes later. As per SSC though, melatonin isn’t particularly strong and the effect I’m noticing may very well be placebo. I always have caffiene, but rarely after 2 pm, and typically not more than two cups of coffee per day.
That said, I suspect my lighting and light policy is having a much, much bigger effect.
The primary light source in both the computer room and bedroom are a variant of these:
I have a number of presets configured; every single one of them is orange, with no blue enabled, in both rooms. Even at full brightness, it’s rather dim compared to even a single overhead bulb, and I switch to progressively more dim presets later on at night. I only use the incredibly bright overhead lights if I’m searching for something, or working on a specific high-detail project.
My bedroom has blackout sheets on the windows.
I take all my showers/baths in the dark. I started doing this to better understand some of my visually impaired friends; I quickly discovered that I liked it more than having the lights on all the time.
All of my computer monitors are all set for the minimum brightness level that still allows reasonable contrast and visibility, as well as the lowest available color temperature.
And lastly, all apps/terminals that I use are set to a black background, except for the browser; my X session background is solid black. Websites in the browser are set to dark mode css if it’s available, and I have a ‘dark mode’ extension for sites without a dark mode css. All this said, I generally only flip on the extension in the evening.
I pretty consistently go to bed around 9:30 when I feel super sleepy, and can typically fall asleep in under five minutes. I’ve found that even a few minutes of using the overhead lights after 7:00 pm breaks this; I both don’t get as sleepy as normal, and find it harder to go to sleep if I go to bed anyway. Caffiene late in the day can also screw it up pretty badly, but that’s far more rare than needing the overhead lights for a few minutes for some task.
“I’ve found that even a few minutes of using the overhead lights after 7:00 pm breaks this; I both don’t get as sleepy as normal, and find it harder to go to sleep if I go to bed anyway.”
Are the overhead lights orange / red-shifted? Have you tried blue-blocking glasses?
I’ve found lighting, melatonin, and caffiene regulation to be wonderful additions to my sleep regime. I take melatonin pretty consistently at around 8:30 pm, and it seems like it helps make me sleepy ~45 minutes later. As per SSC though, melatonin isn’t particularly strong and the effect I’m noticing may very well be placebo. I always have caffiene, but rarely after 2 pm, and typically not more than two cups of coffee per day.
That said, I suspect my lighting and light policy is having a much, much bigger effect.
The primary light source in both the computer room and bedroom are a variant of these:
https://www.amazon.com/MINGER-Changing-Lighting-Flexible-Decoration/dp/B07JP5375R
I have a number of presets configured; every single one of them is orange, with no blue enabled, in both rooms. Even at full brightness, it’s rather dim compared to even a single overhead bulb, and I switch to progressively more dim presets later on at night. I only use the incredibly bright overhead lights if I’m searching for something, or working on a specific high-detail project.
My bedroom has blackout sheets on the windows.
I take all my showers/baths in the dark. I started doing this to better understand some of my visually impaired friends; I quickly discovered that I liked it more than having the lights on all the time.
All of my computer monitors are all set for the minimum brightness level that still allows reasonable contrast and visibility, as well as the lowest available color temperature.
And lastly, all apps/terminals that I use are set to a black background, except for the browser; my X session background is solid black. Websites in the browser are set to dark mode css if it’s available, and I have a ‘dark mode’ extension for sites without a dark mode css. All this said, I generally only flip on the extension in the evening.
I pretty consistently go to bed around 9:30 when I feel super sleepy, and can typically fall asleep in under five minutes. I’ve found that even a few minutes of using the overhead lights after 7:00 pm breaks this; I both don’t get as sleepy as normal, and find it harder to go to sleep if I go to bed anyway. Caffiene late in the day can also screw it up pretty badly, but that’s far more rare than needing the overhead lights for a few minutes for some task.
“I’ve found that even a few minutes of using the overhead lights after 7:00 pm breaks this; I both don’t get as sleepy as normal, and find it harder to go to sleep if I go to bed anyway.”
Are the overhead lights orange / red-shifted? Have you tried blue-blocking glasses?