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Can Blocking Blue Light Help Bipolar Disorder As Well as Sleep Issues? (sciencealert.com)
A new experiment suggests sleeping with amber-tinted glasses can reduce the manic symptoms of bipolar disorder within three days. Slashdot reader schwit1 quotes a report from Science Alert:
The benefits of amber-tinted glasses are that they block blue light -- a major component of sunlight and the light beamed at us from our computer and phone screens. In the mornings, it's this blue light that helps reset our body clock each day. But a growing body of evidence is linking too much blue-light exposure in the evenings to problems including insomnia, obesity, depression, and other mental illnesses.
I wonder how many Slashdot readers are already trying to improve their sleep patterns by avoiding exposure to blue light?
I wonder how many Slashdot readers are already trying to improve their sleep patterns by avoiding exposure to blue light?
Damn, I just wallpapered our bedroom with OLEDs.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'm guessing most of the Slashdot crowd already knows about f.lux, which I use on my PC's to (attempt to) reduce nighttime exposure to blue light. I don't know how well it does or doesn't work for me, but it helps just as a reminder to unplug an hour or two before my intended bedtime, if possible.
Practicing good sleep hygiene has tangibly improved my sleep and well-being over the past several years, though I noticed results within a week, once I learned and adopted good practices from my sleep doctor. Keeping the right ambient temperature (a surprisingly low 65-70 degrees for me), avoiding light exposure (completely blocked bedroom windows, taped over LED lights, removing all light sources but two red night-lights), getting a truly comfortable mattress, avoiding late meals/snacks/fluid intake, and (more challenging for couples) sleeping alone make the biggest differences for me.
And how are we supposed to know those tests work if you use blind people?
Think, people, think!
A few years ago I noticed that I was getting a lot of headaches from eyestrain due to looking at computer monitors all day. I was flipping through some electronics magazine and noticed an add for special gaming glasses for FPS "sports". $200 for non-prescription tinted glasses. I thought of trying those, but not for $200 down. Fast forward 3 months and I'm due for getting new glasses and I find that my ophthalmologist's office is having a buy one pair, get a second pair free sale. Thinking back to the ad I asked him if I can have the second pair an adjusted prescription with a yellow tint akin to my Yellow #8 camera filters. The adjusted prescription gives me optimum clarity at between 1-3 feet in front of me (about the same as readers), and the yellow tint blocks out enough of the blue light that I don't get any headaches anymore. If I had to pay full price for the second pair, the tint was only going to add $20 on top of the normal prescription lens price (for me with all the additional options I usually get like anti-scratch, polycarbonate, etc is roughly about $200-300).
tl;dr version: There's definitely something to blue blocking to reducing the effects of looking at a computer screen, but it shouldn't raise the price of your normal lenses by any significant amount.
I have a pair of blue light blocking computer glasses that I use. Ever since I started using them, my sleep cycle has returned to normal.
The LED traffic light issue is a funny one though, the lights are efficient enough that they don't put out enough heat, and can get covered by snow.
So now they need to put heaters in to melt the snow. :)
It's fine as long as the LEDs are organic, not those nasty GMO LEDs.
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.
Hypomania is kind-of-sort-of awesome. Not really, but it feels that way, like cocaine or a small dose of meth might.
Full mania involves a facial rictus like the Joker, being unable to stop grinning, giggling at everything. You drive fast, you make bad decisions, you don't care. Everything is awesome, all things are awesome. The inside of your skull burns, and it's awesome; you can feel your neurons screaming, and you want to shoot yourself in the head with a shotgun to make it stop, because it's so awesome, too much awesome, it burns so much and it's awesome like a vicious nuclear fire inside your skull.
Even a hypomanic episode can completely cancel any urge to sleep. You wake up the next day still feeling awesome, but also tired; your eyes burn, your head hurts, your body creaks and cracks around you, and you drag yourself, nauseated and battered by sleep deprivation, out of bed because you just can't stay still. It's bad but it's cool because you feel kind of great and kind of shitty at the same time. You might spend days or even several months without more than a few hours sleep each night; you start feeling high all the time, like you're smoking opium constantly, but the sedation is just extreme sleep deprivation. You can't think straight and can't get anything done, and you feel useless, but also pretty awesome, actually.
Unless you're stable against suicide, mania is a good time to kill yourself, since it's both terrible and uninhibited: it's a shitty way to go through life, and you feel a lot more confident about going on and offing yourself. Most bipolar suicides occur during a manic episode.
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Point ANY LED at your face while you're sleeping and I bet that you'll find it annoying...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Could well be placebo effect, but if you're getting the result you wanted then that's good
"I wonder how many Slashdot readers are already trying to improve their sleep patterns by avoiding exposure to blue light?"
I go to my local red light district!
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.