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Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by bamboozled on Thursday April 26, 2018 @04:22AM (#16929992)
You could take this one step further and just say NO devices or TV at night or after 7pm, period.

I can honestly say it's been game changing for me to do this. I just read paper books now, taken a while to get into the habit but my sleep has improved so dramatically since then.

Also, my phone charger lives in the kitchen, so my phone doesn't come to bed with me, also a dramatic improvement.

What is strange about all this is that fluorescents, while not pleasant to use, don't seem to keep my up like devices do. In that I can have one on for 30 minutes before bed and sleep well. Maybe it's not the light but the stimulation that affects us?

Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by jedberg on Thursday April 26, 2018 @04:28AM (#16930028)
> You could take this one step further and just say NO devices or TV at night or after 7pm, period.

I've done that before and it didn't make any difference for me. If I read a book on a screen or on paper before bed, it doesn't seem to matter, as long as the light is 1850K.

Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by criddell on Thursday April 26, 2018 @07:18AM (#16930846)
I read on an e-ink Kindle. I wonder what the backlight temperature is? I usually fall asleep while reading, so I guess I don't need to worry about it too much.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by paulcole on Thursday April 26, 2018 @07:12PM (#16936834)
Kindles have never been backlit. I think they always use a frontlit screen. Big difference.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by criddell on Friday April 27, 2018 @09:05AM (#16940482)
Color temperature doesn't matter for frontlit screens?
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by paulcole on Friday April 27, 2018 @12:14PM (#16941917)
Front lit reduces eye strain regardless of temperature.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by criddell on Sunday April 29, 2018 @12:40PM (#16952716)
AFAIK, most people are concerned about screen temperature for affect on sleep, not eye strain. At least that's what it is for me. Eye strain isn't a problem.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by baq on Thursday April 26, 2018 @08:54AM (#16931390)
the older model that i've got definitely uses a blueish led which only becomes white-ish in color when brightness is set to higher levels. don't have technical data.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by emodendroket on Thursday April 26, 2018 @02:33PM (#16934351)
It's frustrating that you can't turn the backlight off altogether to simulate the pre-backlight Kindle experience.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by boojums on Thursday April 26, 2018 @04:29PM (#16935401)
I have a newer Kindle Paperwhite and you can turn the back-lighting completely off.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by emodendroket on Thursday April 26, 2018 @04:36PM (#16935489)
It looks that way, but if you're in a dark room you can see the light's still actually on.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by satysin on Thursday April 26, 2018 @05:47AM (#16930402)
I found the same. Eliminating the blue light was all I needed to make a big impact.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by bamboozled on Thursday April 26, 2018 @06:54AM (#16930739)
So it's not a one size fits all thing, that's ok.

How do you know when to go to bed when idling on a device? There is just endless streams of crud to browse, code to write or whatever. Do you need to have a "bed time" or you just end up feeling tired?

What I've noticed about eliminating (most) device use after 7pm is that I'm actually pretty excited to go to sleep around 9:30-10pm because I just end up feeling tired. When I was browsing, consuming social media etc, I just didn't really know when to stop.

Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by lloeki on Thursday April 26, 2018 @02:10PM (#16934165)
> How do you know when to go to bed when idling on a device?

Mindfulness helped me reining that in: I learned to listen to my bodily feelings instead of half-consciously shunting them because ooooh shiny compulsive refresh. It worked both ways: I realised sometimes I tried too hard going to bed when I wasn't tired enough (if at all) and I just slept a couple hours tops, then couldn't sleep for the remainder of the night, which just sucks when the end of the next day comes.

Along with practicing mindfulness, the biggest change for me was killing all blue light sources. This had the most dramatic effect of all things.

Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by jedberg on Thursday April 26, 2018 @06:03PM (#16936287)
Sometimes I just get tired. When I find myself thinking "hey sleeping in this chair right now would be cool" I force myself to get up and sleep in the bed. Sometimes I fail and end up falling asleep in the chair, which is bad.

But the thing that really helps me is the feature in f.lux that is a reverse alarm clock. Starting at midnight, it pops up an alert saying "you're waking up in eight hours". It does that every 1/2 hour, counting down. So at least every 1/2 hour a get a reminder to at least think about going to bed.

Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by satysin on Thursday April 26, 2018 @06:22PM (#16936472)
Ohhh. I wasn't aware of this feature as I stopped using f.lux when Microsoft added Night light to Windows 10 a while back. Might have to check it out again.
Re:What I learned by living without artificial light by fastball on Thursday April 26, 2018 @09:16AM (#16931555)
What about a Kindle?