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Aging Eyes Blamed For Seniors' Health Woes
Hugh Pickens writes "Scientists have looked for explanations as to why certain conditions occur with age, among them memory loss, slower reaction time, insomnia and even depression looking at such suspects as high cholesterol, obesity, heart disease and an inactive lifestyle. Now Laurie Tarkan writes that as eyes age, less and less sunlight gets through the lens to reach key cells in the retina that regulate the body's circadian rhythm, its internal clock that rallies the body to tackle the day's demands in the morning and slows it down at night, allowing the body to rest and repair. 'Evolution has built this beautiful timekeeping mechanism, but the clock is not absolutely perfect and needs to be nudged every day,' says Dr. David Berson, whose lab at Brown University studies how the eye communicates with the brain. Dr. Patricia Turner, an ophthalmologist who with her husband, Dr. Martin Mainster has written extensively about the effects of the aging eye on health, estimate that by age 45, the photoreceptors of the average adult receive just 50 percent of the light needed to fully stimulate the circadian system, by age 55, it dips to 37 percent, and by age 75, to a mere 17 percent and recommend that people should make an effort to expose themselves to bright sunlight or bright indoor lighting when they cannot get outdoors and have installed skylights and extra fluorescent lights in their own offices to help offset the aging of their own eyes. 'In modern society, most of the time we live in a controlled environment under artificial lights, which are 1,000 to 10,000 times dimmer than sunlight and the wrong part of the spectrum,' says Turner. 'We believe the effect is huge and that it's just beginning to be recognized as a problem.'"
I usually keep the lights here in the basement off.
What are the effects of too much exposure to light? Should I use a screen filter for my monitor?
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
that people should make an effort to expose themselves to bright sunlight or bright indoor lighting when they cannot get outdoors
In neither case does bright lighting come into the equation. There's a reason geeks are thought of as pasty white,* though at least Sheldon has a set schedule of going outside to get sunlight once a week.
*Yes, I do realize there are many geeks who get outside for various activities. It's a joke.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
http://www.livestrong.com/article/38118-high-cholesterol-effects-eyes/
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I wonder, do the blind have the same "health woes" when aging as the sighted?
I believe the article mentions that cataract surgery will fix this problem, allowing the full amount of light (in the correct part of the spectrum) back in. (In fact, as a recent slashdot story mentioned, it sometimes allows you to see in the UV!).
I wonder if people will choose to have cataract surgery done even if they have no cataracts. My mom was recently evaluated for the surgery, evidently it's a (relatively) simple procedure; the patient goes home the same day and only has mild discomfort for a few days.
Hi Carl!
Cancer.
So uh, do populations where it's sunny year round have a significantly smaller population of people with memory loss attributed to ageing?
Direct sunlight, with its ionizing radiation? Are they crazy?
The obvious solution is to preserve our delicate photoreceptors by avoiding light as much as possible... at least for the decade or two it takes engineers to invent replacement eyes.
And if we really need periods of intense light during the day, well, that's why God made enormous LED-lit displays.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
It wouldn't be a bad idea, but honestly if you had a problem you'd know it by now, take it from someone with a circadian rhythm disorder. During my bad spells I have every symptom of an 80 year old man; lack of concentration, poor memory, poor reaction time, moodiness and anger, physical exhaustion, and of course extreme drowsiness. And that's even if I manage to get a decent 6 hours of sleep, when your body is determined that it is time to sleep it does not appreciate being kept awake. You can push through it for a day or two, maybe a week with enough willpower, but 3 weeks into a stretch where your body thinks that 5AM to 1PM is the perfect time to sleep when family, work, and friends all think differently... well... yeah... you'd know if you had circadian rhythm problems.
If you live in Seattle, it doesn't matter how old you are.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
I've always been careful with both my eyes and ears, ok - they're not the same, but at least for my ears...I'm over 40 and have tested my ears with delicate test-instruments and top-notch headphones, and can still hear well in the 20Khz range, 23 Khz, when I was 20 years old.
Same for vision, while I do notice in the dark...that the exact center spot of my eye, blocks the weakest of light, I can still see pretty much the way I did as a kid, and I always kept low light conditions, and wasn't much exposed to the sun at all.
Those however that did - doesn't even have anything CLOSE to my vision, so I really wonder. Maybe it's the diet.
I've also noticed that if I eat vegetables for 14 days straight, my vision increase to extreme sensibility, and gets "night-ready" faster.
Go figure...
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
So uh, do populations where it's sunny year round have a significantly smaller population of people with memory loss attributed to ageing?
That alone proves its bogus. A simple trigonometric function of latitude should correlate strongly with age related problems. That strong correlation does exist for indoor lighting.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
use melatonin supplements?
I mean, why use surgery to fix things on old people when you can just fix the problem with a cheap solution?
Also, isn't the concept of people living beyond the age of 70 relatively new in human society? Maybe we just haven't evolved (or our "intelligent design" hasn't kicked in) for this new development yet. I mean, doesn't it take more than a couple centuries for significant changes to occur?
I actually have a circadian rhythm disorder myself. Between 2005 and 2010 my sleep 'schedule' would go around the clock fully over a period of every 1-2 weeks. So, part of the time I was up during only the night, sometimes in between, sometimes during normal parts of the day. I have a greater than 24-hour sleep cycle naturally it would seem. However, I've been maintaining a pretty normal schedule for 1.5 years now. I started using sublingual 2.5mg melatonin lozenges after my sister told me about them. It totally did the trick in my case.
Of course, more relevant to the article, there are lamps you can also buy for bright light therapy. I actually just got myself one about 11 days ago. It can take up to a few weeks to have an effect, and I think I've finally started to feel a measurable effect over the past 3 days, but I'll see how it goes before I make a final determination. According to what I've read, it can help with circadian rhythm disorders, but I personally bought it for the antidepressant effect. Perhaps I'll be able to switch over to using only the light, which would be pretty neat. But I wouldn't complain if I still had to use melatonin.
But their bad eyes are certainly contributing to my car insurance woes.
I had cataract surgery in my left eye (which is the dominant eye) four years ago, at age 49. I had cataract surgery in the right eye 18 months later.
Simply put--as your eyes cloud over, your brain has to work substantially harder to compensate. Your brain has to decipher blurred vision, compensate for the "halo" effect cataracts give you around bright lights (the reason why older people don't drive at night is the halo effect of oncoming headlights--completely blinding them).
All of that changes with cataract surgery--you don't just see better. (And you see MUCH better--if you wore corrective lenses beforehand they implant a custom-fit lens that corrects your vision to 20/20 or better.) All of the "clock cycles" that your brain was devoting to countering the effects of cataracts (even things like keeping your balance) are all of a sudden freed up. The change is dramatic--it really is life-transforming.
My mother-in-law is 90--she had cataract surgery last fall. Last summer, before the surgery, her daughters were wondering about "what are we going to do about Mom"--at the time I suggested that they wait till after the cataract surgery; I was sure it would have a big impact. Boy, did it--my mother-in-law is active, alert, far more capable, and busy with plans for an expanded vegetable garden this summer.
Until you go through the experience, you can't really understand how much effort your brain puts into interpreting what you see. The impact of cataract surgery is unbelievable.
Can you toss more information on those lozenges to me? I seem to have almost the exact same issue you describe having.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
:) just learned what I have. People never understood how I could sleep +1 hour later everyday. wonder if I can get melatonin lozenges.
Is there any psychological correlation with this phenomena and the desire to move to the brighter sunnier states - like Arizona and Florida - when one hits 75?
What are the effects of too much exposure to light?
Combustion.
Too much staring at computers? Nothing. I guarantee your computer screen is not bright as the outdoors under daylight*, and your eyes are made to handle that.
Staring at a computer not in proper phase with your 24-hour schedule? That's a problem -- particularly staring at it just before you go to sleep.
*clear sky (not the sun directly) is a few thousand nits, and fills up to a hemisphere. Your screen is hundreds of nits, and subtends a smaller angle.
Cataracts are one possible effect; clouding of the lens due to exposure to bands of UV light. Certain medication can also contribute to the effects of light on the eye, but the common one that many people use without knowing the potential effect is St. John's Wort.
I'm profoundly affected by the shortened (and usually sunless) days beginning in the fall, through the awful winter, and into the spring. (I'm self-diagnosing, but I'd say it qualifies as SAD.) I've used St. John's Wort in the winter months with a reasonable degree of success, but I think adding bright light to my work area helped a lot more. As in, four 300W fluorescent bulbs.
Much to my chagrin, however, I learned that St. John's Wort and Bright Light don't Mix.
Cataracts are (generally) easily treated, thankfully, but that might not be the extent of the possible effect. And I don't particularly want cataracts before I hit 40.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
Melatonin is considered a supplment in some parts of the world, and prescription drug in others. If considered a supplement where you live, go to the pharmacy and pick up ~1mg pills, should do the trick(effective dose is something like 0,1mg)
I use the Nature's Way Sublingual Melatonin in the 2.5mg potency. You can order it on Amazon, if you prefer. They also come in other forms where you just swallow them, but then you tend to have to take them a few hours before you go to bed, whereas you can take the lozenge closer or at the time you intend to go to sleep.
Disclaimer: I'm no doctor of course, but I'm told it's perfectly safe. I actually know of 3 people other than myself that use it without issues. I've also heard that if you take much more than 2 mg it can lessen the effect, but I've had no issues with the 2.5 mg lozenges.
Interesting tidbit: I just did the math. I used to sleep for 9.5-10 hours, and then was awake for 16. That would make my sleep cycle around 25.5-26 hours.
Let's try to temper this discovery (not so much new as newly re-emphasized by this work) with the understanding that, it is only one of many contributing factors. Surviving longer allows us to encounter a plethora of new-&-improved woes for old folks. Sure, getting out and soaking up more rays is a good thing when properly managed, but let's not go overboard and attribute to one cause that which is complexly determined.
Memory's the first thing to go. I forget what the second is.
And the gov gives no thought to the older generation when they mandate getting rid of incandescent bulbs and have us use the "energy saving", (what amounts to dim candles) bulbs.
Wuddooeyeno? IITYWYBMAD? Like nuts? eclecticallyincorrect.com
I use a full spectrum monitor
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
This sounds like anti-aging! Aging is natural and makes us better and wiser! We shouldn't tinker with nature! Except when it comes to colonizing Mars, well then we should go all out on the technology. Because nothing is more important than sending middle-aged weak apes to other planets.
Melatonin is one of the body's natural substances - I think the synthetic is supposed to be identical. I used it for a while, then quit, now just starting up again. It evidently works best when taken at the same time every day and then go to bed, not to read. In my case (before) it worked for a while in getting me to sleep but I would still wake up two or three times a night. After a while it quit working entirely. I was not good at the 'same time every day' part, so I think that my body just decided the signals were screwed up and started ignoring it. I have also been told that taking too much will reduce its effectiveness. Now I've just started taking it again, but I'm also taking some other things that help me stay asleep (without knocking me out like Sominex etc.) We'll see.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
What does this theory say about the poor folks who live in places like Seattle and Portland? Are they all doomed to a dismal old age at age 45? This would mean I waited too long to move away. :P
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
They have it at WalMart (in the US).
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
There is a program called Flux or something like that which changes the light temperature coming from your monitor based on the time of day.
Have you seen the study that correlates eye socket diameter with latitude? (Spoiler: it's a significant, positive correlation).
Obviously, an individual's eye socket diameter informs their decision on where to live.
I just hope someone is working on 'floaters' in eyes as well; I have one already before the age of 50 and was told by an opthamologist nothing can be done about them.
Most of this should be fairly easily testable with statistical methods. Do people living in low-sunlight environments (eg: perpetually foggy or cloudy areas, or close to the poles during the dark months) show a higher incidence of all the same "aging" problems than their age would imply?
Young adults in industrialised countries typically receive only 20–120 min of daily light exposure exceeding 1000 lux.42 87 108 109 Elderly adults’ bright light exposures average only 1/3 to 2/3 that duration.42 110 Institutionalised elderly receive less than 10 min per day of light exposure exceeding 1000 lux,55 111 with median illuminances as low as 54 lux.55
The article was very interesting. However, how would it stack up against other epidemiological data, such as the fact that depression in Brazil (lots, and lots of sunlight), approaches U.S. rates of depression?
http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20110726/richer-countries-have-higher-depression-rates
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
Scientists have looked for explanations as to why certain conditions occur with age, among them memory loss, slower reaction time, insomnia and even depression looking at such suspects as high cholesterol, obesity, heart disease and an inactive lifestyle
Gee, I don't know, because of OLD AGE?
Thank the heavens there are such geniuses around leading to scientific break-throughs of such magnitude.
From the original abstract: " A 45-year-old adult retains only half the circadian photoreception of early youth" which the summary translates into: "by age 45, the photoreceptors of the average adult receive just 50 percent of the light needed to fully stimulate the circadian system".
Sigh.
One of the reasons bodies make LDL cholesterol is to make pregnenolone. Pregnenolone gets turned into Progesterone or DHEA. Progesterone becomes Cortisol; DHEA becomes Testosterone, which gets turned into estrogen. Wikipedia has a nice flow chart somewhere... Progestogens, I think.
If the cholesterol -> pregnenolone conversion isn't working very well (because of hypothyroidism, or a lack of required vitamins), the liver pumps out more "base material" [LDL cholesterol] with the hope that more of the needed hormones will be produced.
Cloudy eyes has to do with a loss of order in the lens' proteins, possibly due to low energy (hypothyroidism). It's sorta like how a clear egg white turns white when it's cooked - the proteins lose order with the application of heat.
Two asides: Knee-capping the body's hormone system via Lipitor/Crestor is a crime against physiology. My father refuses to take Lipitor because he sees what it does to his patients. Mom goes along with what her doctor says, and figures her lack of energy is just "normal aging".
Chemical birth control (the ones that use prescription hormone disruptors) also interferes with the progesterone -> cortisol pathway, but doesn't much touch the DHEA->Testosterone->Estrogen pathway. Which leads to women having too much testosterone and estrogen in their bodies. The transformation takes a couple decades. My first post in that series isn't quite finished. Soon, though. :^)
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
Blind people should have a dramatically higher incidence of all these issues in old age, if the claim is valid. Surprised they didn't do that study as well.
You take it a little before the desired "bed time" I take it?
We have nonprescription sleep aids that have melatonin in it, so I'm assuming for now I can actually get it.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
If I stay awake until I get tired, I stay awake for 24 hours at a time and then sleep for 12. I just lucked out because I'm able to sleep alright after 16 hours awake, though it does make for brutal mornings. For a few weeks one summer though I went to a 24/12 schedule and it was the best couple weeks ever even if people had trouble getting used to when I was available and when I wasn't. Apparently it is fairly common to have a longer than 24 hour circadian rhythm. I know someone had put together a 6, 28 hour day a week schedule that could be done if you have flexible enough hours, though thus far I have not been in a situation where the hours are flexible enough to try it.
AJ Henderson
For about a year I was on a 28 hour schedule by choice. Awake for 20 hours, sleep for eight. It was glorious. Awake until you are tired then sleep until you are rested. Repeat. You sleep six times over seven days. You will wake up at the same time on each weekday, 8am on Monday, Noon on Tuesday, 4 pm on Wednesday, etc. I do miss it.
Everybody in this thread - The natural 25-26 hour schedule is completely normal for most diurnal mammals. They've done research with humans giving them NO time queues for days, and it turns out EVERYBODY falls into a slightly over 24-hour schedule.
The conclusion here is that our chemical engines are too imprecise for us to evolve a dead-on circadian cycle. So instead evolution gave us an unaided circadian cycle that's calibrated with a mean of about 25 hours, so that people with a naturally extremely short cycle are still just over 24 hours, and it goes up from there. Then we get a natural reset cue to adjust the cycle every day to keep it in sync with the world. The primary component of the reset signal is sunlight exposure in the morning. If you get up at a reasonable time (near or after sunrise) and GET OUTDOORS for about 15 minutes, then you will feel like going to bed at the right time to get enough sleep and want to get up at about the same time the next day. We and our ancestors spent tens of millions of years with no choice but to receive natural light in the morning, so it was a pretty good system before we evolved to live in our parent's basements and stare at little screens all day.
I suffer big time from this - every day I want to stay up and get up about an hour or so later than I did the day before - but not if I'm spending much time outdoors, especially in the morning. When I'm backpacking, wholly cow do I just want to go to bed when it gets dark, and get up just after sunrise. If we spent the day exercising outdoors like evolution intended, we wouldn't have this problem... but good luck being able to/wanting to do that all the time. But if you just drag yourself out of bed and take a 15 minute walk outdoors, even if it's cloudy or right around sunrise, problem solved. It does get tricky if you have to be at work before sunrise. Or if you work night shift (which I did for about 2 years) you're just *'ed.
I think the light exposure causes melanin production on about a 14 hour delay, making us want top go to sleep about 16 hours after exposure. This is why melanin supplements near bedtime are somewhat functional as a surrogate for actual light exposure in the morning.
Or as an alternate solution, since the day gets longer by about 1.7 milliseconds per century, by my calculations you could just wait about 200 million years for the earth to get in sync with your natural clock.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
For those who use it, you understand.
I use a full spectrum monitor
So, you stare at a florescent light bulb all day.
You must be in management.....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
White leds are actually blue leds with a phosphor to down convert some of the blue to yellow and red. If you look at the spectrum of white leds (go the Cree web site) you will see there is a peak in the blue part of the spectrum, particularly with the "cooler white" versions which should be helpful as a daytime light for folks who have a problem with their circadian rhythms.
The gadget lover in me has thought about getting a sunlight lamp for years. I've heard that they can damage eyes or cause cancer. Is this true? If not, can anyone tell what is a reasonable price and or model of one?
Would melatonin work just as well for circadian rhythm issues?
I had just gone down to Fry's and grabbed 2 long 6 outlet strips, a dozen 'Daylight' (blue tint instead of the 'warm' red tint) compact florescent bulbs, and 2 wall outlet timers. I did have to stop at the hardware store as well to get 10 minimal fixtures (just to turn standard outlets into bulb sockets)
I spend 15 minutes every morning as I wake up just gazing into the lights...
Completely changed my life; instead of having problems with insomnia and waking before noon, I now get naturally tired around midnight, and naturally wake up between 7 and 8.
And here I sit with my windows blocked off because I thought the sunlight was causing fatigue on my eyes, making me tired.
I know someone who had some surgery - they drained the fluid, fixed stuff, and re-filled the eye. In the process, they filtered out the floaters.
Maybe it was cataract, I don't remember. But yes, those can be removed. I doubt any doctor would do surgery just for those, of course.
Obviously, an individual's eye socket diameter informs their decision on where to live.
Nah, it's all those tropical islanders & jungle dwellers with the beady little eyes....
So uh, do populations where it's sunny year round have a significantly smaller population of people with memory loss attributed to ageing?
That alone proves its bogus. A simple trigonometric function of latitude should correlate strongly with age related problems. That strong correlation does exist for indoor lighting.
Well don't tell everybody yet. At least wait until I've sold millions of sets of my age-fighting glasses with miniature sunlamps shining directly into the user's eyes. Complete with solar-powered charger, of course.
John Ott was promoting the health benefits of natural light in the 1960s. Nothing new here...
Just watch out for the rascals who sneak up in the middle of the night to tip you over.
blog
Nice one.
On a serious note, another effect of too much exposure to light (depending on the source) is skin cancer.
blog
I think the light exposure causes melanin production on about a 14 hour delay, making us want top go to sleep about 16 hours after exposure. This is why melanin supplements near bedtime are somewhat functional as a surrogate for actual light exposure in the morning.
Sadly, for some of us, that delay is larger, significantly so. In my case the delay is closer to 20 than 14, meaning my body essentially gets reset incorrectly every day. With careful management of a host of different factors, I can just about fall asleep at 1AM on a good day. If something disrupts that, if I don't get bright light in the morning, don't turn down the lamps, don't turn off the computer monitor, or just plain get kept up for 10 minutes past 1, it's all down hill from there. A single missed day can take weeks to recover from, because every day my circadian rhythm gets set to a value that's off by 5 hours compared to the normal world.
I actually believe this study (please see my post above about cataract surgery) but I was just thinking.
If this were true, wouldn't older people's eyes be more dilated? Because they're trying to get as much light as possible? Has anyone noticed this?
Of course maybe the mechanism that controls eye dilation senses a different frequency of light than what controls circadian rhythms. This might be an interesting topic to pursue further in a study!
Cataract beget LENS REPLACEMENT and that, for me, was wonderful. It was like going from an ancient CRT to a good modern flatscreen. I had various other eye problems which lens replacement partially corrected.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I've self-diagnosed myself with SAD too. My doctor has diagnosed me with RLS, which has it's own sleep issues. My doc put me on 1mg of melatonin a couple of hours before bed (as others have mentioned). He also told me to get a "Blue Light (~450nm)" and put that on the desk in front of me in the mornings to help "wake me up" when I have to get up before sunrise. I've had fairly good success. Finding out that I was ultra-low on Ferritin and taking iron supplements has helped so much with the RLS and sleep issues that I've been able to abandon the melatonin. It's hard to quantify, but I think the extra iron has helped with the SAD too. No, checking your Ferritin is not a normal part of a blood test, the doctor has to put it on the lab order. You want to ask your doctor about that.
I noticed this exact thing several years ago when I quit my job because of burnout and took it easy for many months.
I had all the windows in my bedroom covered in tinfoil so it was 100% dark when the lights were out regardless of time of day.
I would go to bed at a certain time and wake up when I felt like it. First day would be say 9AM, the next day 10AM,then 11AM etc etc. It was kind of freaky when I started waking up at 8PM and felt totally refreshed. It just kept going and going until eventually I was waking up at 8AM again. I think I went thru this cycle about 5 or 6 times until I got a new job.
One thing I do remember it was probably the best time in my life even though I was unemployed. I had never been so productive before or since. I learned VHDL and did some cool console electronic projects. Played the shit out of the guitar and drums and learned a lot more then ever previously.
If they could only make the job/working aspect of society center around this sleep schedule Im sure a lot more could get done for people that are like that.
As in, four 300W fluorescent bulbs.
You should try halogen lamps. They have a wider spectrum of light.
One issue with halogen lamps is that they're more prone to cause fires (if a curtain touches the bulb), so many manufacturers have removed them from consumer offerings for liability reasons, but halogen lamps (or halogena bulbs) are still the de facto standard for galleries and stores that care about having the most attractive displays.
You can get tools which adjust the brightness and color based on the time. That can help you fall asleep after getting off the computer. The standard bright LCD does keep you awake. I've found it can make a noticeable difference if you're the sort of person to get stuck up late on the computer without ever feeling tired.
There is a name for the disorder now. Well if it really is a disorder. It is called Non-24 or sometimes N24. Not a great name, but what can you do?
I have struggled with this for years. I don't understand how others who have this can hold down any kind of normal 8 hr per day job. Every time I try I end up getting fired for being late during the half of my cycle when I can only sleep during the day.
I have a Philips GoLite and after many trials I can confidently say that it does not work for me. It does not change my +2 hr per day cycle. Also it gave me headaches in the morning after I used it. I tried turning down the brightness to the lowest level and not looking directly at it. Nothing helped, but then I am prone to headaches. It is a cool gadget though.
I recently tried melatonin. It did work for me at first. For almost a month in fact. But then it just stopped working. I tried many different dosages both higher and lower, but it doesn't seem to do much. I still think it's a good idea to take 1 mg or less of timed release melatonin 1-2 hours before you want to sleep. Melatonin has a very short half life so extended release is pretty much mandatory. I tried a number of brands and the 1 mg Natrol brand worked best for me, but, as I said, it seemed to stop working.
Dark therapy is my next goal. It is not so easy though. Most lighting that you would think would work for it doesn't. Or at least shouldn't. The idea is that after sunset you should not be seeing any blue light at all and in fact even green, yellow and orange light seem to suppress melatonin according to some studies. Just not as much as blue. The only wavelengths that don't seem to suppress melatonin or at least only have a negligible effect are right around the very edge of the visible spectrum above 690 nm.
There is no natural sort of lighting that will give you that. Not low pressure sodium. Not neon. Not salt lamps. The only option is LED lighting and commercial far red or near infrared lights don't exist. I plan to build my own 700, 720, and 740 nm lights using high power LEDs in order to properly test out this dark therapy thing. If that doesn't work then I'm out of options.
I've also tried spending all day outside doing some kind of strenuous activity as much as possible. That doesn't seem to work for me either. Certainly not the same day. I find that physical strenuous activity doesn't make me mentally tired. It makes my muscles tired, but not my brain. Studying advanced math and physics all day is more likely to make me tired. I think sleep is more of a brain recharging system. Even if spending all day outdoors did cure me, I wouldn't want to live that kind of life.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
The bulbs I have are 5000K, sitting in the nice "daylight" slot in terms of color temperature, and also have a CRI of 90, which is pretty good for fluorescent. They're probably not full-spectrum, granted, but they suffice.
Halogens are nice, but as you mentioned, they tend to get really, really hot. My work space (upstairs) has seven-foot ceilings and can get pretty stuff as it is :-)
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
Melatonin is a very poor sleeping pill and you shouldn't use it as such. You use it to help reset your circadiam rhythm. Take just enough that you can't feel its effects (~0.5mg) about 4 hours before the time you want to be asleep. This tells your body to start doing all the internal things it's supposed to do that makes you feel tired. To get 0.5mg, you'll need to break the pills up. They're commonly sold as 3mg pills. Melationin works for circadiam rhythm disorders: DSPS, ASPS (oppsite of DSPS) and N24. If you're having some other issues with your sleep, the melationin won't help.
If you're using bright light therapy for sleep reasons, you should feel it's effects the first time you use it. It won't suddenly fix your sleeping problems, but you'll feel different.
Read these:
DSPS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm_sleep_disorder
I have a circadiam rhythm disorder. It switches between DSPS and N24. It is/was hell and I've attempted suicide over it before. I was only diagnosed last year. Up until then for the past 15 years of my life, I just thought I was a worthless lazy ass. I needed five alarms clocks and could still sleep through them all. I'd spend all my energy duing the day trying not to fall asleep during school (middle school, high school, college -> almost failed out) and then laid awake in bed all night stressed out about not being able to fall asleep and worring my parents would check in, notice I was still awake, and scold me for staying up late (when I was a kid). I was forced to be late to everything. If I wasn't, the down time of waiting 5-10 minutes for everyone else to show up was enough for my body to decide "hey, lets go to sleep now" and I would struggle to stay awake for whatever meeting/class I was in. If I was late then the stress, aniexty, and adrenaline of rushing to the event was enough to keep me going for a little while. I'm doing better, not great but better.
Breaking research! Blind people should be sleeping all the time!
0,5mg 4 hours before, for a medication that have 35-50 minutes halflife means you'll have no left in you when you go to bed. For me it works splendidly to take one right before going to bed. Wheras I used to fall asleep only after lying in bed for over 1hour, sometimes 3 and not all that seldom even 5 hours I can now jump from a brightly lit screen straight to bed and be fast asleep within 40 minutes with good reliability. The bad part of course is where you run out of melatonin tabs and find that your body have downregulated production to zero. As for required disorders, fuck that, human variability and the way reference ranges are set ensure that a lot of people could not get a diagnosis yet still will benefit from melatonin, if nothing else, it could be placebo, but if it works, it works. It's not terribly expensive and very nontoxic so trying is no great harm.
Should be easy to verify. Areas of the world such as Africa where there is a lot more bright sunlight should have fewer sleep problems.
My experience in gloomy wintery Canada and sunny summery South Africa over a few months has shown no difference (in this sample of one). Obviously a controlled experiment is required, but I am skeptical.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" An interesting parallel.
>>What are the effects of too much exposure to light? Should I use a screen filter for my monitor?
You laugh, but it causes insomnia and ASPD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_sleep_phase_disorder).
Cancer.
Working nights is listed as a possible carcinogen by IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer). The link that has the biggest research base is between breast cancer and night work. The dominant theory is that circadian disruption caused by exposure to light at night lowers melotonin production which is either a causal factor in cancers or supresses protective mechanisms. So, too much sunlight in the day causes skin cancer, too much artifical light at night possibly causes breast cancer.
Not required, just tends to work best for those people. Other sleeping pills don't adjust a person's circadiam rhythm, they just make you unconscious.
Melatonin is a hormone; your body makes it. Taking it 4 hours before bedtime says hey, you should be having this stuff in your blood stream now. People's melatonin level natually starts rising before they get tired. The small amount before hand helps kick your body into it's natural production. You take it that early to readjust your circadiam rhythm which in turns lets you sleep a more normal schedule. You can take it 30min-1hr before bed as a mild sleeping pill, but it doesn't adjust your circadiam rhythm that way. My advice is more for someone who's having tons of problems falling asleep at night and waking in the morning. People with DSPS commonly can't fall asleep until after 4am and don't get up until noon. They don't do that by choice.
"I can now jump from a brightly lit screen straight to bed" You're using it as a cruch like people use caffine and pwer drinks instead of getting enough sleep and eating well. I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't use it that way (I definitly have, plus some doctors recommend 4-6mg), just that you can take it eariler for a different type of effect and for some people that effect is more useful.
If you take it every night the effects will wear off. I take it two nights a week, same dose for a year now and all is well.
I come here for the love
sleep repairs telomeres (the ends that keep-the chromosomes from unraveling) like the tips on shoelaces. without them, we age, get cancer and other age-related diseases. Sulfides in your food could be absorbed into the eyes through the membranes of the mouth; the more you eat out and do not read labels; the more you age: that is just my research. So meditate, clear your mind eat like a pauper. live long and prosper on the earthschool.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/traits/telomeres/
Yes, take it 30m before bedtime. It is also fantastic for dealing with jet lag or shift work. It also gives you a deeper sleep so I feel like I got an extra 30m or so of sleep when I take it.
I LOVE my light therapy lamp. Got it 3 years ago for winter depression, and was surprised when it also caused my sleep cycle to reset to allow me to function much better in the morning