
What I learned by living without artificial light - happy-go-lucky
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180424-what-i-learnt-by-living-without-artificial-light
======
jedberg
I've done a lot of research on sleep and sleep disorders, and have
experimented on myself a few different times. Things I've found that help the
most:

Number one, far and away, is arranging my schedule such that I don't have to
set an alarm clock. I did this once in college when I was able to get only
late classes, and I do it now since I work for myself (although the kids
sometimes wake me up). Any time I can go for a week or more without setting
any alarm clock, I feel far more refreshed throughout the day.

Number two, no blue light at night. I went a little nuts with this one, not
only getting flux, but I work in the dark at night with the brightness on the
monitor at the lowest setting with a blue filter, and I also replaced all the
night lights in my house with special night lights that run at 1850K
(candlelight). I also installed a second light in bathroom with it's own
switch and installed an 1850K LED bulb in it so that I could do my nighttime
routine in "candlelight". Basically, after the kids are down, there is no
source of blue light anywhere in my house.

These two things seem to have made the most difference. I've done other
experiments with temperature control, sleeping position, bedroom darkness,
etc. They all seem to make some difference as well, but not nearly as much as
those first two things.

~~~
Antimachides
What method would you recommend for a sleep schedule reset? I'm currently
trying to move my fall asleep time from 4AM to 10PM.

~~~
nitrogen
Try taking lowest dose melatonin like 5 hours before your bedtime, in addition
to minimizing brightness and color temp of light sources. Don't worry if you
wake up in the night for a while; read a paper book.

~~~
wool_gather
> Don't worry if you wake up in the night for a while

This is very good advice. I'm sure it varies from person to person, but
anecdotally it seems to be completely natural to have a mid-sleep period of
wakefulness (for a bathroom trip if nothing else).

If you start _worrying_ that it will lower the overall quality of your sleep,
it definitely will. But if you just go with it, lie still, at most read a
book, you will get sleepy again in short order and continue your rest. In
fact, personally I (paradoxically) seem to feel _more_ rested on the nights
that I had a more noticeable/awake mid-sleep hiatus (and without spending
extra time asleep).

YMMV, of course; the point is not to let a completely benign occurrence turn
into tossing and turning and watching the clock because you're anxious about
getting enough sleep.

------
ggm
Body of story does not match title of story here or the BBC. It's "what I
learned kind-of minimising artificial light at night, but not actually
complete because I used redshifted apps and a lot of ... Well.. artificial,
cold cathode and LED light. And anyway it's darkish outside so anecdote but
also S.A.D. is a thing."

I think the story premise is great. The execution leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm trying not to feed the snark. But, really, I think they could have gone
harder for a better story. Kids makes it hard.

~~~
gurp
Yeah, the headline is just a lie.

------
RandallBrown
I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail this summer and spent 4 months sleeping
outside. My body very quickly adjusted to sleeping when the sun went down and
waking up when the sun came up.

Lots of thru-hikers experience a post hike depression, myself included, but I
always thought it was mostly about being back in the real world with real
responsibilities. Maybe it has to do with light?

I did notice that when I was in a town staying in a hotel I would always stay
up much later than I did when I was on the trail.

~~~
dannyr
4 months on PCT?

Where did you start and end?

Looking to do PCT in a few years. Do you have it documented somewhere?

Thanks.

~~~
RandallBrown
I started at the Mexican Border and finished at the Canadian border.

[http://pct.adventuresnotvacations.com](http://pct.adventuresnotvacations.com)

~~~
dannyr
Yeah. Found your blog and your Instagram.

Looks like a great trip.

------
skrebbel
Does anyone know how effective "computer with flux/nightlight/etc" is compared
to "no computer at all, write stuff by candlelight on paper"? Is
flux/nightlight getting me most of the way (assuming no super blue/white
lights in the house), or is it hardly getting me started?

I bet this has been studied but I don't know where to look.

~~~
veidr
I don't know that, although I once tried hard to google it. What I do know,
though, is that for me these orange-tinted blue-light-blocking safety glasses
(which I learned about from somebody else on this very forum discussing this
exact topic a few years ago) work way better than any screen-modifying
software I have tried.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000USRG90/ref=oh_aui_sear...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000USRG90/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

They look a bit silly but if you are just at home, who cares...

(I no longer use them, because in the intervening years I produced three young
children, so I am now exhausted at all times and can fall asleep instantly
whenever the opportunity presents itself. However, I still do use Night Shift
/ Night Mode / f.lux / Windows Blue Light Filter on all my phones and
computers, because I came to strongly prefer it after getting used to it, even
in absence of sleep issues.)

~~~
sshagent
Random tangent, but that last statement about having 3 kids and instantly
falling asleep whenever the opportunity presents itself rings really true for
me. I had major sleep problems until i had 3 kids. 4 years of 2 new borns +
heavy callout. Took about 3 years to recover from that but i'd fall asleep
anywhere i sat still long enough. Glad thats all behind me, i hope you're
getting some good sleep.

------
jaggederest
I find that when I am in rural areas, I sleep like a rock.

I think it has as much to do with sound as light. But certainly good light
exposure during the day, a dark, quiet sleeping environment, and a routine
schedule make an incredibly significant impact in me (someone who has normally
struggled with insomnia)

~~~
jaclaz
>I find that when I am in rural areas, I sleep like a rock. >I think it has as
much to do with sound as light.

You are an exception I believe (if you normally live in the city), I live in
the country and I am used to it (and conversely I have sometimes some issues
when sleeping in a city, mainly due to traffic noise, but not only) but when
some friends come and stay, often they are disturbed by the thousand little
noises of animals, birds, etc., particularly in the early morning in spring
when the birds start singing around 5 A.M.

~~~
jaggederest
Grew up in the country, and I sleep with earplugs in to boot. City noises
punch right through them, amazingly enough, traffic rocks the foundation of my
house enough there's no escape.

Planning the purchase of somewhere peaceful and remote as we speak.

------
kalehrishi
I use this [https://justgetflux.com/](https://justgetflux.com/) everywhere and
helps lot to sleep even if you get exposed to screens. I am not sure about
Kindle before sleep. It has some bright light however it is better than
reading book in lamp light. Candles are good but should not be used for long
as smoke starts to build up. I would like to know other views.

~~~
dogma1138
Windows, MacOS, iOS and I believe now Android have it built in, it can help
but it’s not that great if you’ll be using your screen till bed time.

White point adjustment doesn’t actually reduces the amount of blue light by
that much it’s really due to how LCD screens and their color filters work,
some monitors a have built in function to turn on a blue light filter which
can also be used in conjunction with white point adjustment e.g Flux which
does help it reduce it further.

Which is why I stop all screen use 45min before bed time, more would be too
much of a burden for me and less wouldn’t be effective but you should
experiment with what works for you.

I also found that watching my OLED TV has considerably smaller effect on me
than my computer screens or phone if I use them just before bed. I don’t know
if this is due to the nature of the screen since it doesn’t use backlight
hence less blue light or is it just due to the fact that the perceived
brightness is lower due to the watching distance.

~~~
ericd
I find that popping on some orange safety glasses an hour before I want to
sleep helps much more than flux, partly because you don't have to worry about
other sources of blue light, like bulbs: [https://www.amazon.com/Uvex-
Blocking-Computer-SCT-Orange-S19...](https://www.amazon.com/Uvex-Blocking-
Computer-SCT-Orange-S1933X/dp/B000USRG90)

Top rated by Consumer Reports vs other blue light blocking glasses, they block
nearly 100% of blue light. You can literally not tell that blue LEDs are on,
for example, even when toggling them and off.

~~~
wool_gather
Those look awfully uncomfortable, but it's a very interesting idea.

~~~
ericd
They're actually not bad comfortwise - they're very adjustable, far more so
than most glasses.

------
Senderman
It strikes me as imbalanced to do away with artificial light at night, but to
then do nothing about artificial darkness during the day: She spent most of
the experiment indoors, working in an office.

------
petercooper
I think I'm wired up back to front. I sleep very well. My problem is daylight!
It drains me and I can't wait for the evening. At night I find it easy to be
alert and when I've adopted a nocturnal schedule, I've been happier and more
productive. I've just shut the blinds and turned off the lights in the office
to get some work done..(!)

------
baldfat
Bad research!

> Pre-industrial societies such as the Hadza tribe in Tanzania also seem to
> have a far lower prevalence of sleep problems, like insomnia. “When we asked
> members of the Hadza whether they thought their sleep was good, they almost
> universally said ‘yes, it’s totally fine’. That statistically doesn't match
> up with what we see in the West,” says David Samson, an anthropologist at
> the University of Toronto in Mississauga, who has studied them.

This is what they actually found from that Tribe and a second one. They
actually got less sleep then people do living with artificial lights.

> The team asked 94 people from these groups to wear Actiwatch-2 devices,
> which automatically recorded their activity and ambient-light levels. The
> data revealed that these groups all sleep for nightly blocks of 6.9 and 8.5
> hours, and they spend at least 5.7 to 7.1 hours of those soundly asleep.
> That’s no more than what Westerners who have worn the same watches get; if
> anything, it’s slightly less.
> [https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-
> many...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-many-myths-
> of-paleo-sleeping/410707/)

UCLA study - [http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/our-ancestors-probably-
did...](http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/our-ancestors-probably-didnt-
get-8-hours-a-night-either)

This was talking about the idea that we naturally sleep a little and wake for
a few hours and then go back to sleep as some normal human sleep pattern. The
idea is still the same we sleep about the same in modern times. I have had to
read a lot of ancient documents and in those documents they talk a lot about
bad sleep medicine. If they sleep so well why do we have so many sleep fixes
in those documents.

[https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4939-2089-...](https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-1-4939-2089-1_4)
(Just focused on India documents on sleep from 4,000 years ago.

~~~
gregwebs
That's a great study on hunter-gather sleep duration that I think helps bust
some myths about sleep duration. The quote you are trying to refute though is
about sleep quality issues like insomnia, which may still be much lower in
hunter-gather groups.

------
tvanantwerp
Has anyone here who wears glasses tried prescription blue-light-filtering
lenses? I can't really use the orange glasses lots of people recommend in the
evenings because they don't fit well over my glasses--even the clip-ons I
bought don't sit right. I've read a bit about prescription lenses that filter
blue light, but haven't tried it. I'm curious if anyone else has an what their
experience was like.

~~~
graeme
[https://www.amazon.com/Uvex-S0360X-Ultra-spec-SCT-Orange-
Ant...](https://www.amazon.com/Uvex-S0360X-Ultra-spec-SCT-Orange-Anti-
Fog/dp/B003OBZ64M/)

These work great. I wear glasses and they are very comfortable over them.

~~~
tvanantwerp
Bought a pair and started using them. Thank you for the recommendation!

------
SuperChihuahua
This was also discussed in a good book about sleep I read a few weeks ago: Why
we sleep [https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-
Dreams/dp/1501...](https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Sleep-Unlocking-
Dreams/dp/1501144316/)

------
upofadown
Note that there were two aspects mentioned in the article. Reducing exposure
to bright/blue light after dark and increasing exposure to bright/blue light
in the daytime. The first is relatively easy to do for most people but the
second tends to be harder if you work indoors.

------
Starwatcher2001
You might find this talk by Paul Reading interesting. Paul is a consultant
neurologist who specialises in sleep disorders, and who is a past president of
the British Sleep Society. Don't let the amateur video editing put you off,
the content is so interesting, I attended the talk at two different venues.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXSoqQF93lU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXSoqQF93lU)
(1/2)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CCjDUYjnfg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CCjDUYjnfg)
(2/2)

------
timonoko
Tell me about it. If you live the summer far above the arctic circle, you will
soon lose your precious synchronicity. You sleep when there is nothing else to
do, 12 hours if needed. Fishermen seem to prefer past midnight hours because
the wind is minimal and flying bugs come close to water attracting salmon. And
afternoons are best time to sleep, as there might be excess heat and
mosquitoes fly high. I find these conditions to be the optimal, and feel quite
depressed when the annoying darkness gradually creeps in.

------
dsign
Ha! That about artificial light and screens is a bit ... wanting the blame the
artificial. I find that natural sunlight makes sleeping tough business close
to the poles.

------
lonk
TL;DR; Article is very long, 4,744 words. Last paragraph is summary: "It’s
ridiculously simple. But spending more time outdoors during the daytime and
dimming the lights in the evening really could be a recipe for better sleep
and health. "

~~~
garganzol
This. I am a person prone to bipolar disorder and it made a huge improvement
for me.

You can also add a natural anti-depressant (coffee, red bull) at the morning
and depressant (milk, yogurt) at the evening to the mix.

Another advice is to avoid working with Flux / Night Shift at the evenings.
This sends conflicting signals to the brain: warm screen light asks for relax
but the need to work asks for concentration and focus. This does not go well
together.

But you totally can watch an entertaining/scientific YouTube channels with
Flux / Night Shift on at the evening. It will gradually drag you to a very
good sleep. The good thing it is repeatable, so you can follow this deeply
satisfying pattern everyday.

EDIT: Bipolar disorder, not bistable disorder.

~~~
cimmanom
What is bistable disorder, if you don't mind my asking? I couldn't find
anything about it on google.

~~~
garganzol
My mistake, I wanted to say "bipolar disorder".

------
anonu
Having grown up in a place with constant blackouts, I had too many nights
living on candle light. Granted, this was before smartphones...

------
FrozenVoid
I just disable the blue light entirely in monitor settings. Setting the colors
which include blue(magenta, cyan,blue) to 0 stops that entirely. The only
drawback is that colors in images that have blue are replaced by gray/black
tones(which isn't a problem for me at all).

------
hownottowrite
Highly recommend A. Roger Ekrich’s At Day’s Close:
[http://books.wwnorton.com/books/At-Days-
Close/](http://books.wwnorton.com/books/At-Days-Close/)

Not only is it a great book on the subject, but the writing is exquisite.

------
TACIXAT
I've used red shift apps, cut out sugar and caffeine, got controllable lights
that follow a day night cycle. I still stay up late. The last thing I can
figure is back lit screens, but that is a bit harder for me to live without.

~~~
sixstringtheory
Of course I’m making a few assumptions here, but it sounds like your problem
is that you just don’t shut off that part of your brain to allow it to relax,
so you can fall asleep. I don’t care how dark or redshifted your screen is,
it’s also the content on it and what it is making your mind do.

Try stopping all electronics mid evening, watch the sun set, and read or write
(not on electronics!) for an hour or so.

------
bojanvidanovic
Some time ago I discovered my left eye is suffering from astigmatism and I
needed glasses to correct it. I was suggested to order glasses with a blue-
light filter and it's been a game changer for me ever since.

------
tcfunk
I tend to sleep very well, regardless of screen time or caffeine intake.

However I think this has mostly to do with the fact that I don't sleep enough
and my mind/body cherishes what little rest I allow.

------
jccalhoun
I'm lucky that I rarely have problem falling asleep. Light used to bother me
but then I worked 3rd shift for a few months and now light doesn't really
bother me when I try to sleep.

------
k__
I only set an alarm, when I need to travel.

I sleep like 9h if no one wakes me up.

------
John_KZ
Do people really manage to go more than a few days with less than 6-7 hours of
sleep? I don't know anyone that does it.

Also the article conveniently forgets how many near-isolated tribes with zero
exposure to artificial light never sleep through the whole night, they wake up
in intervals and often sleep very lightly because there's danger looming at
all times.

Sure, artificial light can be an issue, but if you practice self-restrain with
screentime and get a lightbulb with a warmer tone for the late evening hours
then your problem will be solved (if it even was caused by light exposure in
the first place, and it usually isn't).

------
tintor
Use of candlelight increases your risk of home fire significantly. Better use
LEDs that are similar to candles.

~~~
amelius
Candlelight is also artificial light ...

~~~
glastra
Exactly. Came here expecting an article on someone who used sunlight only and
how that affects life, ability to do work, sleep, health... And found an
article on someone who removed blue light, while keeping artificial candles
for dark times.

------
jdlyga
Artificial light suppresses melatonin. But no worries, I have a bottle of
artificial melatonin too.

------
Lxr
Sam Altman concurs with the benefits of morning light:

> I use a full spectrum LED light most mornings for about 10-15 minutes while
> I catch up on email. It’s great—if you try nothing else in here, this is the
> thing I’d try.

[https://blog.samaltman.com/productivity](https://blog.samaltman.com/productivity)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075H39NDL](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075H39NDL)
is the one he mentions (not available).

It's 5500K and it says it mimics midday sun; I wonder if that could be harmful
long term, as you're shocking your body awake - "it's midday, get up!" \-
rather than following a natural progression from dark to morning-light.

------
nukeop
I don't think living completely without artificial lights and screens is
possible for a vast majority of HN users.

Remember to completely shut your bedroom out at night though, it has to be
completely, 100% pitch black. It improves the sleep quality a lot.

~~~
antonp
From my anecdotal evidence I see that sleep robustness can be strongly shaped
by conditioning when we're younger.

Ex: having your children sleep in bedrooms with open doors with a dim light
source on will make them into one of those "I sleep through everything"
sleepers.

Curious to hear other people's experience.

~~~
tomcooks
Grew up in a very rural area (maximum of 2 cars passing by my window everyday)
and used to sleep in pitch dark.

I could get robbed, bombed and receive a kidney transplant without noticing -
so yes it's anecdotal, curious as well

~~~
isostatic
Once I'm asleep I can sleep through a lot (and even if I do wake up, get out
of bed, and put the kids in the shower after they've been sick - I have no
memory of it in the morning)

However getting to sleep is tricky. I've found two things that seem to work.

One is listening to Legally Blonde the musical on repeat with headphones on --
on a plane even where I don't get a bed this allows me to sleep for a good 6
or so hours on an overnight flight. It's weird, I think I had it on once some
years ago and fell asleep, now my brain feels to be "conditioned". If I listen
to it I start feeling sleepy.

The other is at home where it's quiet, dark, and no movement. I start thinking
about orbital mechanics (at least as much as KSP has taught me), and I usually
fall asleep fairly quickly.

------
ggggtez
>Because I needed to maintain a normal work schedule, I also decided to keep
the lights on until 18:00, although I switched my laptop to ‘night mode’ after
sunset.

So, they didn't "live without artificial light". They just used candle-light
after dark, and didn't watch TV. Not impressed.

------
tzs
Sunlight has significant blue light. (This makes sense, considering that our
sensitivity to blue light evolved in order to sync to the day/night cycle).

But what about moonlight? Surely our intrinsically photosensitive retinal
ganglion cells (the cells that handle the sensing for syncing) and the syncing
mechanism using them evolved back when our early hominid ancestors lived and
slept outdoors.

Does the Moon do a poor job of reflecting the blue components of sunlight?

Or did our ancestors have bad sleep during those times of month when the Moon
was up in the early evening?

Or is the reflected light from the Moon dim enough that the blue component
does not reach some minimum threshold to activate the retinal ganglion cells?

Or did they simply find a place to sleep behind a tree or rock or something on
the side opposite the Moon?

~~~
fiatjaf
> Sunlight has significant blue light. (This makes sense, considering that our
> sensitivity to blue light evolved in order to sync to the day/night cycle).

Your thesis about the evolution of our sensitivity to blue light comes from
the fact that sunlight has blue light, but now you're using (a) to prove (b).

~~~
tzs
Most general discussion on the net about the adverse effects of blue light is
in the context of artificial light, such as from screens. People sometimes get
the mistaken impression from this that natural light does not have significant
blue content, and the bad effects of blue light in artificial sources comes
from blue light being something that we did not evolve to deal with it all.

The point of the parenthetical comment was that our sensitivity to blue light
is not because it is something we did not naturally encounter and so it is
some kind of irritant we have not developed a tolerance for, but rather
because we evolved sensitivity to it as a way to sense the day/night cycle, so
of course there is significant blue light in sunlight. If there wasn't we
would not have developed sensitivity to it. We would have developed
sensitivity to some other color that is significant in sunlight.

It probably could have been phrased better.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
It absolutely is a natural evolution - the pineal gland in our brain, which
regulates the sleep cycle via hormones, responds to blue light as a signal to
wake up. We see blue light - it's a sign the sun is up and the sky is lit and
it's time to go hunting.

According to wikipedia, the moon full moon provides about 0.05–0.1 lux. The
sun, even on an overcast sunrise provides 40 lux, and can provide up to
120,000 lux. Even assuming a logarithmic response (as in hearing), that's
still a huge difference, so I doubt that it provides enough stimulation to get
us to regulate the hormones poorly (though I'm sure the moon did affect our
sleep regardless).

