Yesterday, the Dan's Plan blog Eat Move Sleep published a blog post I wrote about sleep, artificial light, your brain, and a free computer program called f.lux that can help us live healthier lives. Head over to Eat Move Sleep to read it.
I have had difficulty getting to sleep as long as I can remember. Fussy about light, noise, temperature.
We use mostly incandescent lights, and almost all are on dimmers. I have always liked dimmed light in the evening. I suspect there is not much blue light in a dimmed incandescent.
I can't believe f.lux didn't inform me of the other luminous options. I always wondered why my cell phone looked a lot dimmer at night compared to my monitor. I'm using the lower level options as I type this, and the 66% reduction in luminous(from 2700 to 1200) is amazing. Thanks Stephan, this is quite useful as I wont have to bother wearing glasses unless I have a bright light on as well.
Thanks for the extremely useful tips Stephan. I suspect my digitally addicted family's health could be remarkably improved with the Uvex specs and/or f.Lux program. Despite my own health improvements since switching to a more "ancestral" diet and weekly fasts, late night screen viewing remains my major stumbling block.
Totally off topic, but wondering if you have any thoughts on the recent papers by Ian Spreadbury and his acellular carbohydrate hypothesis? Together with the concept of food reward, Spreadbury's ideas seem to make a great deal of sense of my own experience as well as what may appear to be the contradictory results of studies relating to the "diseases of civilisation", including the recent work in the area of the gut microbiome.
Spreadbury & Samis 2013 Evolutionary aspects of obesity, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular risk http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12170-013-0293-1
Spreadbury 2012 Comparison with ancestral diets suggests dense acellular carbohydrates promote an inflammatory microbiota, and may be the primary dietary cause of leptin resistance and obesity http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402009/
Dr. Guyenet, I find your blog very interesting and informative. Thank you for taking the time to write about your insights and research.
I recently came across a diet called Failsafe, which claims that certain food additives as well as naturally occurring chemicals can impact sensitive people in different ways including sleep disturbances (http://fedup.com.au/factsheets/symptom-factsheets/sleep-disturbance-and-insomnia). It is somewhat off topic here, but I am curious about your take on their research with regard to food chemicals and sleep? Thank you.
5 comments:
I have had difficulty getting to sleep as long as I can remember. Fussy about light, noise, temperature.
We use mostly incandescent lights, and almost all are on dimmers. I have always liked dimmed light in the evening. I suspect there is not much blue light in a dimmed incandescent.
I can't believe f.lux didn't inform me of the other luminous options. I always wondered why my cell phone looked a lot dimmer at night compared to my monitor. I'm using the lower level options as I type this, and the 66% reduction in luminous(from 2700 to 1200) is amazing. Thanks Stephan, this is quite useful as I wont have to bother wearing glasses unless I have a bright light on as well.
Thanks for the extremely useful tips Stephan. I suspect my digitally addicted family's health could be remarkably improved with the Uvex specs and/or f.Lux program. Despite my own health improvements since switching to a more "ancestral" diet and weekly fasts, late night screen viewing remains my major stumbling block.
Totally off topic, but wondering if you have any thoughts on the recent papers by Ian Spreadbury and his acellular carbohydrate hypothesis? Together with the concept of food reward, Spreadbury's ideas seem to make a great deal of sense of my own experience as well as what may appear to be the contradictory results of studies relating to the "diseases of civilisation", including the recent work in the area of the gut microbiome.
Spreadbury & Samis 2013 Evolutionary aspects of obesity, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular risk
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12170-013-0293-1
Spreadbury 2012 Comparison with ancestral diets suggests dense acellular carbohydrates promote an inflammatory microbiota, and may be the primary dietary cause of leptin resistance and obesity
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3402009/
Something else to consider:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23151476
Interesting link between aberrant light exposure and depression.
Dr. Guyenet, I find your blog very interesting and informative. Thank you for taking the time to write about your insights and research.
I recently came across a diet called Failsafe, which claims that certain food additives as well as naturally occurring chemicals can impact sensitive people in different ways including sleep disturbances (http://fedup.com.au/factsheets/symptom-factsheets/sleep-disturbance-and-insomnia). It is somewhat off topic here, but I am curious about your take on their research with regard to food chemicals and sleep? Thank you.
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