
Why office workers can't sleep and why that's bad - Crou
https://lithub.com/why-office-workers-cant-sleep-and-why-thats-bad/
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C1sc0cat
Interesting however there is data going back to the 1920's about changing
lighting at work (Taylor I think) that shows that the very fact of changing
light levels improved output.

However when the changed the lighting levels back output improved again. It
looks to me this is based on poorly designed studies, the including of trigger
words like "kids" "iPad" is a bit of a red flag.

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sokoloff
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect)

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C1sc0cat
Thank you that is the guy who I was thinking of - its a long time since I did
my production engineering courses.

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bballard
Hawthorne was a place.

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imgabe
The main reason why offices have gotten dimmer is that energy conservation
codes limit the amount of power you can use for lighting. Most office type
spaces are only allowed 0.9 - 1.1 watts per square foot compared to 3 watts
per square foot in the past. Part of that reduction is also that lights are
vastly more efficient, but designers are also incentivized to use as little
lighting power as possible.

Lighting power is also tradeable among spaces. If you want to use some extra
light for a fancy lobby space, you can make the office areas dimmer as long as
you still come under the allowed total overall.

Energy codes are in general a good thing, but there are some tradeoffs and
unintended consequences.

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Dylan16807
> 0.9 - 1.1 watts per square foot

So with LEDs, one and a half 60 watt equivalents per square meter? That's
pretty bright. If I'm doing my math right that's enough for 1000 lux.

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imgabe
I'm not sure how you're calculating that, but if you're just looking at the
lumen output of the bulb, the lighting level is measured at the work surface.
In an office, that's at 3' off the floor and the light is at the ceiling which
is at 8'-10'. Lighting intensity decreases with the square of distance, so if
you have 1000 lux right next to the bulb, you're going to have considerably
less 5' \- 7' away.

Add to that that those aren't the kinds of fixtures that are used in offices.
People don't want to look at bare bulbs (and they also create glare) so most
lights have some sort of lens that is going to reduce the light output
somewhat.

The target lighting level for offices is 30 footcandles or about 322 lux. Even
1000 lux is nowhere close to being outside on a sunny day which is more like
100,000 lux.

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Dylan16807
> Lighting intensity decreases with the square of distance, so if you have
> 1000 lux right next to the bulb, you're going to have considerably less 5'
> \- 7' away.

But you're in the range of square-of-distance bulbs. An array of lights on a
ceiling gives approximately the same lighting as if you had a uniformly
glowing ceiling and all the light went exactly down.

You'd be outputting a good amount more than 1000 lumens per square meter of
ceiling. Most of that hits the work surface of the same size, so you get 1000
lumens per square meter, which is 1000 lux.

> some sort of lens that is going to reduce the light output somewhat

A lens shouldn't reduce it by much if it's doing its job.

> Even 1000 lux is nowhere close to being outside on a sunny day which is more
> like 100,000 lux.

Yeah but it's a lot more than 300! If there's a problem it's probably not
caused by energy rules.

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wrnr
I've had insomnia for as long as I can remember and wish there was another
culture about sleep. I saw this documentary about the Institute of Advanced
Study (IAS) wherein a physicist was staying awake for 48 hours so he can focus
on his work. The IAS is famous for hiring the best scientists and letting them
work on whatever they want. I am not a genius like him but I wish I could use
my restlessness to my advantage and work in long stretches of time and just
sleep when my mind stops spinning.

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MaximumYComb
I had medically diagnosed insomnia for a period. If your insomnia is anything
like mine then you'd have a decent idea about if you're going to sleep that
night or not. If it's 1am and I'm still wide awake then I'm not getting
quality sleep that night. What do you have to lose by going to your PC at that
time and working for 6 hours before work? You're going to be tired tomorrow
anyway any attempting to sleep for another 5 hours isn't going to help.

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greggman2
I'm curious about this idea of insomnia. I'm between jobs right now which
means I don't have to get up. That means for whatever reason (my genes?) I
find I'm not tired until 5am, 6am often. I sleep 7 hours just fine. So the
only thing about it being "insomnia" as in "unable to sleep" would be some
artificial reason I have to get up in the morning. Am I making any sense? It
seems like it's only insomina because someone/something is forcing you out of
the schedule your body wants. Well, I don't know your body. I'm talking about
mine but just saying. I'm getting my sleep just not a the times other people
claim I should be getting it.

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sampleinajar
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder)

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joveian
Also:

[https://circadiansleepdisorders.org/](https://circadiansleepdisorders.org/)

There is also a email discussion list (toward the bottom of the left side).

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aussieguy1234
This study mentions blue light as from smartphones as a problem. My phone has
a blue light filter which I have on all the time. Linux gnome desktop also has
one for late night coding sessions.

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nucleardog
You can solve this globally by getting eye glasses that filter blue light as
long as you're not doing any sort of colour-sensitive work.

After a day or two you don't notice the colour difference anymore.

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hanoz
Your solution to this is just to look at the world through rose tinted
glasses?

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workthrowaway
the GP solution puzzles me too. i don't want this to be the solution. i wear
glasses and my eyes are already damaged and now i need to filter out the color
blue? what about we start making better monitors and screens instead?

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nucleardog
That would be great. When they're done replacing every screen in existence, if
they could replace all lightbulbs in places people visit during the evening
with warmer bulbs (hotels, common spaces, street lights, etc), the lights in
all the new car dashboards, everyone's headlights, every cheap piece of
electronics that's covered with blue status LEDs...

Or you can just filter out some of the light right in front of your eyes and
achieve a workable solution today.

As an added bonus, I think you'll find it actually reduces your eye issues.
Tried out the filtering basically because I couldn't think of a reason not to
and the first time I put the new glasses on it felt like I'd stopped squinting
and relaxed my eyes for the first time in years. I get way fewer eye-strain
induced headaches now.

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RugnirViking
The part where they spoke about various populations sleeping for around an
hour longer each night in the winter is very interesting to me.

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AdrianB1
It is quite logical, the night is much longer and we used to depend on the
light cycle. Also many animals hibernate in the winter, we just sleep a bit
more, it is an adaptation to environmental conditions: less light, less food,
movement in lower temperatures require more energy, sleep conserves energy.

In my country we have a bit less than 9 hours of light in December and over 15
hours in June, we continuously adjust for it.

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RugnirViking
Well yes, it makes sense evolutionarily, but I don't think I had ever
specifically heard someone suggest that not following such a pattern in modern
times might have bad effects

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wjakob
Here are links to more concrete studies concerning this effect.

Action spectrum for melatonin regulation in humans: evidence for a novel
circadian photoreceptor. Brainard et al.
[https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/21/16/6405.full.pdf](https://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/21/16/6405.full.pdf)

Phototransduction by retinal ganglion cells that set the circadian clock.
Berson et al.
[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/295/5557/1070.ful...](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/295/5557/1070.full.pdf)

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graeme
Has anyone tested bright indoor lighting and its effect on their own sleep.

I have some LED studio lights for video work by my desk all the time. I'm
wondering if I should just turn them on while I work each morning. From what I
can tell:

1\. LEDs won't cause sunburn/skin damage 2\. There's no blue light risk of
them if they're not rates above a certain level of light output and you don't
stare directly at them.

I have to check the light rating, but it seems like there shouldn't be
negative side effects to this. My new apartment gets little direct sunlight,
so I've been feeling daytime darkness more acutely.

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bitL
I bought a huge 10,000 lux lamp that was supposed to emit similar wavelengths
to daylight because I found myself to be a bit sleepy during winters all day
long. That one managed to "wake me up" and I ended up as productive as in
summer. Some people also use it to alleviate their seasonal depression (never
had that). I have it illuminating my workspace behind my back. I believe our
eyes have some special "wake up" receptors that react to sunrise and this type
of lamp seems to engage them.

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AdrianB1
Can you provide some details on that lamp, especially power consumption? It
seems an interesting experiment that I would like to try.

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randcraw
I have one of these, but honestly haven't used it enough to assess it. It
seems well made and bright enough to make a difference without being
intolerable. I think it draws 14 watts.

Verilux HappyLight VT43 Luxe 10,000 Lux LED Bright White Light Therapy Lamp
($100)

[https://verilux.com/products/happylight-
luxe](https://verilux.com/products/happylight-luxe)

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hownottowrite
For a more historical take on our relationship with the night, I highly
recommend At Day's Close by A. Roger Ekirch

