Sleep experiments with low blue lights... progress report

[mattbell]

 I posted earlier about my experimentation with blue-blocking glasses to help improve my sleep.  I ended up not enjoying the experience of wearing the glasses, but I realized that I could achieve similar results by setting up red and orange colored night lights in my house.  This was especially nice to add to my bathroom, as it now allows me to use the bathroom in the middle of the night without forcing myself awake again with bright white lights.  You can get these lights for cheap ($5) at Home Depot.  

While this took care of the ambient room light, it didn't take care of the bright white of my computer screen.  For that I used f.lux, which reduced the blue light coming from the screen. I used f.lux on the strongest setting (Tungsten lighting) and I was surprised by how quickly my brain's white balance adjusted to the new color, especially when the surrounding room lights were red and orange.

This combination of colored room lights and f.lux seemed to work well at helping me get to bed, but not quite as well as wearing the blue-blocking glasses.  

However, based on a couple of weeks of data (which admittedly isn't much), the partial blue blocking setup using the colored lights and f.lux starting 2-3 hours before bedtime did not substantially affect my sleep latency -- it averaged 19min instead of 23min.  What did change substantially was my bedtime.  I found I shifted to going to bed an average of 28 minutes earlier and waking up an average of 5 minutes earlier.  The results actually seemed much bigger until I realized I had seasonal fluctuations in bedtime, so I went back and compared only with data from February, which had a similar day length.  I'm getting more sleep and feeling more well rested, which is good.  

Now I'm going to play with Nocturne, a program that gives me much more full control of screen brightness and appearance than f.lux.  Nocturne lets me set my display's entire color space, invert white to black, and do lots of other tricky things.  So far the best compromise between minimal blue light and maximum readability I've found is to just use the "monochrome" and "tint colors" settings on Nocturne, with the "white" color set to pure red and "black" set to black.    It's not the sort of thing I'd want to use for photo editing, but it works fine for working with text and some web browsing.  I'll report back in a couple of weeks on how that goes.

--

At some point I'm not sure mow much more sleep self-experimentation is worth it.   I do know I still move a lot more than the average sleeper, I'd like to get rid of my remaining mild snoring, and I'd like to improve my recovery time on days when I have to get up extra early, but I don't know how much improvement to my waking life I'll get from further changes.  For now I'll keep gathering data, since the cost to do so from a time perspective is very low.  

It would be nice to declare some sort of victory at some point, but this is one of those infinite games where improvements may continue but the margins will diminish, and true value lies in correctly answering the question of when it's no longer worth the trouble to try to improve further.  

Comments

Another option...

[paulmakepeace.livejournal.com]

In the week preceding my week of intensive training in DC recently where I was going to fly from 8am under instrument conditions for 5+hrs a day (i.e. having to stay alert while getting my ass kicked hard) I pre-adjusted to EST by going to bed 30mins earlier each night. First time in my adult memory I've been to bed before 10pm while not actually ill :) Anyway, the only way I got this to work was cutting computer usage after 8pm and using very low light.

I'm envious of your 19min sleep latency...

[g-w-s.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to let you know that I'm enjoying your research quite a bit. I've started using f.lux at home as well. My sleep habits are fairly out of wack.

If you're able, candles produce a very nice yellow light for nocturnal illumination and are quite relaxing as well.

Have you seen this?

http://sleepyti.me/

[ashliana.livejournal.com]

Neat. I've downloaded f.lux. A small step, but perhaps it will indeed help my sleep. I'd like to approach my sleep as methodically as you do, as I have serious sleep problems that have quite damaging effects on mental functionality, but it's hard to do... I guess this is a step forward. I've also found that there are a # of apps on the droid that do similar things to the device you describe in another post of yours -- so perhaps I will start tracking my sleep better to see what's wrong. The real issue I seem to have, though, is that some nights I just can't get my body to relax in bed (even if I meditate before bed or masturbate/have sex), and it's particularly triggered if there are any sounds in the first 20min or so after I go to bed, which I've found to be a sort of the "magic window" where I need to fall asleep, and if I fail, I'm up for many hours later despite fatigue.

Anyway, thanks for sharing. I should get some of those other types of lights for the evening/night as well. I do use a go-lite during the day, but that's really for an opposite purpose. :)

You mentioned trying to reduce your snoring -- have you done any research on this or made any progress here? I ask because my partner is a horrid snorer, and despite using a white noise machine, 33db ear plugs, and putting a pillow in-between us, my sleep is still frequently disrupted by the low repetitive noise.

2700k

[http://www.google.com/profiles/homeagain (from livejournal.com)]

I've been wondering lately why it is that people (myself included) seem to have such a preference for 2700k lighting in their homes when the 6500k stuff, which is much closer to actual sunlight, has been available for quite a while. I'd been thinking that it was just what they were used to but I find that 2700k has a persistent attraction even after I make an attempt to get used to 6500k. My personal aversion to 6500k lighting seems to start after dinner time and get stronger as it gets later.

After reading this I'm wondering now if there might be a wired-in aversion to blue light in the evenings because of this sleep related effect. Maybe spectrum adjustable LED lighting is more useful than I thought...

[neph13.livejournal.com]

thanks for the flux tip...been working quite well for me this past week.


On the snoring tip, I snore due to a deviated septum. My left nostril is more narrow than the right, which causes breathing issues. I have had some success with the BreatheRight strips, but it isn't 100% effective. The more powerful style of the strips works good, I do notice I breathe much easier at night, and can tell a huge difference when I take them off (like I feel like my oxygen intake is decreased by 25%)

[neph13.livejournal.com]

oh, and I found this prog called 'Back Light' which does some of the same things Nocturn does, and a few more tricks. It also has a creen saver
http://michelf.com/projects/black-light/