The relationship between our moods and sunlight | Hacker News Reader

The relationship between our moods and sunlight

arstechnica.com

160 pointsaf1609054 comments

I was impressed by this part:

> In recent years, light therapy has experienced something of a backlash in Sweden, and Malmö’s clinic is one of only a handful that remain. In part, this was a response to a 2007 study by the Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care, which reviewed the available evidence and concluded that “although treatment in light therapy rooms is well established in Sweden, no satisfactory, controlled studies have been published on the subject."

My first thought was "Wow, a whole country that reacts to scientific articles and statements about the lack of controlled studies."

(Of course, the article goes on to say that light therapy shouldn't really be discredited yet, as controlled studies are hard.)

My first thought was "Wow, a whole country that reacts to scientific articles and statements about the lack of controlled studies."

I'm assuming, it's not the country reacts, it's that Sweden's single payer system refuses to pay for it any more.

Health technology assessments (HTAs) are done by a lot of countries like Canada and Australia. Basically they make a judgement on the value of a healthcare offering and if there is no evidence it works, they turn off the funding.

Ah, well actually I like that as well, but that's probably just because I'm a paternalistic liberal... ;)

It's really bizarre and frustrating how "this hasn't been studied" is discrediting. Study it before you conclude it isn't effective.

No one has said it's not effective. They've said there's no evidence that it's effective (which also means there's no evidence that it's not causing harm).

no studies != there's no evidence

They basically said that existing studies failed to be of sufficient quality. But, that does not mean they provide zero evidence.

The most depressing thing is leaving work after its dark. The brief amount of sunshine in the morning is not nearly enough in a day.

I've found that spending my lunch time walking or otherwise being outside very helpful.

That helps a ton. Still sucks leaving work when it's dark though.

This has been my experience as well. I made the change when I realized that I almost always get to work before sunrise and leave after sunset. Among other things, it seems to mostly defeat my typical mid-afternoon slump.

Seconded. This is one of the big reasons why I love where I work. It is located across from Lincoln Park in Chicago, and it's a 15 minute walk to the zoo or the North Avenue Beach.

I didn't realize how much I relied on my lunch excursions until I took a job in the suburbs. I was across from a Costco and one of the biggest outdoor malls in the nation. Walking to either of them from my building took half an hour. As soon as I got to the destination I'd have to turn around and walk back. Not to mention the walk was either alongside 6 lane roads with no sidewalks or through parking lots.

The thought of going back to one of those suburban officeplexes gives me the willies. You could double my salary and it wouldn't be enough.

A coffee break is another good excuse to walk. Besides doubling as exercise with the accompanying mood/energy boosts, it gives me a natural chance to step back from my problems - and perhaps talk with coworkers about theirs.

I guess companies having presence in both hemispheres and / or allowing remote working have a potential hiring advantage :)

The most depressing thing is getting to work in the dark, and then leaving work after dark. Especially when you're leaving early...

It's finally spring, at least.

I think we should just abandon the idea that work has to take place on a fixed schedule year-round and adjust things with the seasons. Of course that's very inconvenient for organizations, but so what? Systems that predictably undermine the wellbeing of their participants are parasitic and should be modified or replaced. Using economics as a lever of coercion is no more acceptable than coercive governance.

> I think we should just abandon the idea that work has to take place on a fixed schedule year-round and adjust things with the seasons.

"Core hours" is one way to keep things fixed enough to have meetings and shared office time, while letting employees adjust their own schedules.

I highly recommend scheduling a little bit of time around lunch for a walk or some other outdoor activity. :)

Long article, but here is the main part:

> Leading theory is the ‘phase-shift hypothesis’: the idea that shortened days cause the timing of our circadian rhythms to fall out of sync with the actual time of day, because of a delay in the release of melatonin. Levels of this hormone usually rise at night in response to darkness, helping us to feel sleepy, and are suppressed by the bright light of morning.

Edit: And alternative hypothesis from the article:

> When melatonin strikes a region of the brain called the hypothalamus, this alters the synthesis of another hormone—active thyroid hormone—that regulates all sorts of behaviours and bodily processes.

I don't know why some people love sunlight, but in my case, normally, it's make me angry, sleepy and tired.

Winter days, on the other side, make me start being productive again, start to run, have healthy food, stick with a nice routine and have a good mood, specially on drizzling days :)

And i know i'm not the only one.

Also, i enjoy night life a lot and, before starting working, always lived my life during the period from 16:00 to 8:00. I did that more than my half life. (Of course, my eating times were found weird for most people)

PS: I don't know if is unrelathed or not, but i'm diagnosed with hypothyroidism. And not, i'm not antisocial, depressive, bipolar or anything like that.

> PS: I don't know if is unrelathed or not, but i'm diagnosed with hypothyroidism.

It is definitely related! Missing thyroid meds for just a few days could explain the symptoms you describe.

> It is definitely related! Missing thyroid meds for just a few days could explain the symptoms you describe.

My girlfriend has hypothyroidism too, she takes the medication daily with rigor, and the endocrinologic results are normal. And yet, she is consistently much more tired than me, even though after a 9 hour sleep. We're currently trying to rule out allergy contributions and psychosomatic contributions, but living in Eastern Europe makes it not that easy to find helpful (and cheap and available) doctors.

My point here is: don't assume all tired people with hypothyroidism skip their meds or have a low dose.

Correct, just saying it's related. Also, I am not a medical doctor.

Several shortages of like Vitamin-D, Vitamin-B12, iron, magnesium or calcium are quite often associated with hypothyroidism, so it's a good idea to have a look at them.

Hi,

As someone who grew up in southwestern US in the desert, I absolutely detest sunlight and sunny days and the concept of a seemingly universal "nice weather" description meaning 80F and sunny or whatever it means to the majority of people.

Unlike you though I don't have hypothyroidism (that i know of but I'm quite sure I'm healthy), and I have never been diagnosed or claim to have: depression, social anxiety, etc.

It's just that the idea of being outside in the sun isn't a pleasant idea for me at all. I don't know about you and most others, but growing up where I did there was no such thing as "playing outside" when I was younger because it was always like 110+F every single day of summer, which was like half the year. The 3 months of winter it was cooler at around maybe 60F in the mornings maybe, to 80-90F in the day, or something like that. In all seasons it was sunny, about 99% of the time and this is not hyperbole. It hardly ever rained, it hardly ever got cloudy, it hardly ever did anything except "sunny and blazing hot" to "sunny and mildly hot."

As a teenager my instincts were: "I'm in my air conditioned house right now, I need to walk super duper fast to get to my car and start it up and turn the AC on full blast, then I need to drive to the store/school/work and prepare myself to step outside back into the 110F heat and walk as fast as I can to get back inside."

As an adult noped at the thought of doing this my whole life and moved away.

Today I live in the PNW region where it supposedly rains all the time. It doesn't, or at least not like I thought. Unlike my peers and coworkers I love it when the weather is "awful." The rain literally doesn't bother me: grab a rain coat. The snow when it happens doesn't bother me because surprise I love being cold. I go running in the snow in the mornings---in shorts. I don't understand the people running in tights. Why would you want to be warm? Is my thought.

I love working in the winter, and I'm absolutely more productive. I LIKE waking up when it's dark, going to work when the dark, and I don't MIND leaving work when it's dark.

I HATE waking up when it's light, and I HATE getting to work when it's light because I feel like I'm so late. Despite me getting in to work at 7am well before anyone else.

During grad school I spent one semester in Norway for an internship, in the winter. People told me oh it's gonna be awful, you're not gonna see the sun. TLDR, I survived, and I would love to live in that environment but just not in Norway (nothing against that country, id rather prefer to live in the PNW where at minimal the culture is "American" and the language is English).

All through my adult life I have been "fighting" with friends and family who tell me "it's just a phase, you'll hate the snow soon enough." Except, I left the southwest when I was 18. I'm 31 now. My feelings and thoughts on this still haven't changed.

Perhaps it's all in my mind. Sometimes I joke about how my childhood in the desert scared me for life and now these are all "repressed feelings." Either way I don't care. I don't like being outside in the sun, I don't like working in the sun, I don't like sunlight. I prefer the rain, clouds, snow, "awful terrible depressing weather." I wake up and look out the window and see it's rainy and overcast and I'm in a much better mood than if my room is all lit up from the sunlight.

Details on the neuro-chemistry:

The mechanism for translating light into mood starts in the suprachiasmatic nucleus*, which sits right behind where your optic nerves cross.

Light-sensitive nerves trigger and transfer that information to the pineal gland, which in turn, starts breaking down serotonin to melatonin.

I dream about a brain implant that artificially stimulates the SCN. Control that stimulation and you control sleep, serotonin, melatonine, hunger, cell-growth, stress etc. etc. etc.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suprachiasmatic_nucleus

Probably the bigger issue is Vitamin D synthesis.

I don't think so.

Serotonine is the most influential neurotransmitter most animals have. You have two production sites in your body. Sleep, memory, behavioural learning, pain-regulation, appetite, blood-pressure, sexual behaviour, body-temperature are all controlled by it.

What about vitamin D which comes from sun exposure? Low levels of vitamin D can make you feel down

I tend to think this is a key factor. When I meditate for 10 minutes outside in the sun, over time my energy levels are noticeably higher, mood more stable, etc. Don't forget vitaman D is also essential in calcium asorbtion.

>Low levels of vitamin D can make you feel down

The studies are pretty inconclusive about that.

I live in Salt Lake City, and during the Winter it gets significantly darker.

I can definitely notice a difference in my mood and well-being when it's brighter outside. It becomes like hunger or thirst where you're craving some sunlight, and if you don't get it, you'll feel bad.

At least, that's my experience.

There is a vast difference between Salt Lake City and Scandinavia: SLC: Sunset December 21st 5:03pm https://www.google.com/search?q=sunset%20salt%20lake%20city%...

Tromsø: 12:18pm https://www.google.com/search?q=sunset+Troms%C3%B8+december+...

Sort of related -- anyone know if there's anything to "happy lights" that have natural spectrum light or whatever?

They work. You are supposed to run them at noon but I run them during breakfast and then it's easy to give the kids an early bedtime.

There are many lights of this variety. They are classed as SAD lamps/bulbs.

Sure. I use one. 10,000 Lux, 3 feet from my pillow, on a timer. Synthetic sunrise, only instantaneous, which is admittedly sub-optimal. For me, it certainly helps me get going in the morning.

So you use it in conjunction with an alarm? Or is it your primary alarm (built in)?

I use both. The light gets me sentient. The alarm a few minutes later keeps me from being late.

Philips hue spot pointed towards my side of the bed.

Combined with the "Sleep as Android" alarm app it can give some sunrise effect for well below USD100.

In my experience, I tend to like the natural spectrum lights better. Mine are around 5000 K to 6000 K. I have several bright (1600 lumens) fluorescent bulbs which I use all day. Some say the spectrum is not very important to help with SAD, that it is merely the brightness which matters. For me, it is just personal preference to use the bright white bulbs.

About an hour before I plan to go to sleep, I turn off the natural spectrum lights and use some dimmer incandescent or halogen bulbs, which have the soft white spectrum many people are used to. Supposedly the dimness and lower amounts of blue in these lights lead to better sleep. I'm not sure if it's true or whether it's just the dimness which makes it easier to sleep.

There's a lot of anecdotal evidence.

The evidence from actual trials is at best weak.

I took a trip to Longyearbyen a couple months ago when there is zero sunlight. That was the first time in my life I did not see the sun rise, and I stayed there for a week.

It was an interesting experience, and the nighttime landscapes were spectacular, but I would probably not want to live there for a long period of time.

In my normal work schedule I often get up at 5am, take a short hike or bike ride and watch the sun rise, then head to the office. It makes the day a lot happier and efficient when I start the day with a little time when I get to see the sun, be myself, and don't have to deal with people.

Many polls indicate Alaska as one of the "happiest" states in the US. I would argue that it is what you make of the light and/or activity level that makes a bigger difference. I live in Fairbanks, Alaska, and we have very minimal sun for half the year (3.5 hours at the solstice). Then you don't see darkness from ~April to ~August. Those who bundle up and get out regularly (ski/ice skate/play hockey/fat bike/walk/dog sled/watch northern lights) enjoy even the -40 degree dark winters.

clever use of the intersection of Celsius and Fahrenheit there! (-40 is the same in both scales)

Coming from Sweden but now living in Barcelona, at least I feel happier. Could probably be because of many reasons but I'm fairly sure the amount of sunlight matters a lot.

In sweden during non-summer (which is like 9 months during the year), you go to work in the darkness, witness the sun coming up for a few hours and when you leave work, the sun is nowhere to be seen again. I just remember feeling a lot more tired.

In Barcelona I wake up with the sun, can see the sun the entire day and still have time after work to catch some hours of 100% sunlight outside before it gets dark.

I studied my masters in Malmö. We had one of the most collaborative, cohesive, friendly classes I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of, and the only time we ever really, really got into a fight was in the middle of winter, when we had a four-week project that forced us to go to a small room in the middle of the building (no windows) from nine to four, essentially cutting off access to sunlight during this entire period.

On the flipside, my happiest memories of Malmö are during my summer internship when I would go to the beach after work around six, when everyone else left, and enjoy the evening sun for four more whole hours

Hahaha, I remember reading somewhere that, in medieval Sweden, if the kitchen girl had not tried to stab someone by february, she was considered to be a total pushover.

I live in Sweden myself and can relate, winters here are insane, due to darkness that seems to last forever.

This is why I could not live in New York City.

But New York City has tons of sunlight, and particularly clear skies in the winter. In fact, it's a gorgeous, bright sunny day at this exact moment.

(Unlike upstate New York, which can be extremely overcast -- I grew up there and moving to the city is so much better).

This seems unfair.

According to the NOAA, New York's annual possible sunshine is 58%:

https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ccd-data/pctposrank.txt

Some cities that we conventionally think of as sunny and are within 2% of NYC:

San Antonio, TX

Austin, TX

Greensboro, NC

Atlanta, GA

TLDR: Being in the sun makes you feel better.

That's about as obvious a conclusion as discovering that if you're thirsty you can drink water to feel better.

Yeah yeah, let's go on about the "virtues" of sunlight. I thought this was Hacker News?

Anecdotally, I've found it much harder to concentrate on intellectual tasks (eg programming) with bright daylight, even if it's entirely diffuse. Similarly, lack of a standard height white ceiling is extremely demotivational to doing non-computer tasks at night.

Humans do use sunlight to manufacture vitamin D and adjust sleep cycles so this is hardly baseless.

I'm not disagreeing with the effects described in the article - just making a friendly knock at the standard narrative that always describes sunlight in positive ways.

If sunlight influences a person's mood, then it follows that this influence could be a negative for certain activities. Based on personal experience, I believe this to be true for intellectual pursuits requiring concentration.

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