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Comment by anotherevan | Hacker News Reader

If you listen to enough Huberman Labs podcasts you'll hear him talk about the importance of getting some direct sunlight in the morning on a daily basis. Here's one example: https://youtu.be/UF0nqolsNZc

Also in the anecdotes folder, saw a sleep specialist with my (young adult) child and he stressed the importance of getting daily sunlight exposure.

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Ah yes the "People living in California forgetting the rest of the work isn't like California" phenomenon - I would love to get sunlight every day but living in the UK that just isn't viable. Sunlight into my eyeballs within 15 minutes of waking up? Forget about it between October and March.

Further evidence to me that humans weren't supposed to stray far from the equator and that I was born in the wrong climate (yes I am working on moving south)

this may be useful: https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens the sun isn't magic, we now have the tech

Thanks, I have a SAD lamp that I use but it's not the same as real actual sun you know? I appreciate the link though :-)

Just make sure you're getting enough lux, commercial SAD lamps are so dark it's borderline fraudulent. You need a LOT of light.

I was thinking, "This is a strange thing to get pissy about," but then realised you're in the middle of winter, so probably not in a great mood.

Living in the southern hemisphere it's hot here at the moment and were keeping an eye on the bushfire reports.

And the flood reports!

(I'm on the combination bushfire and flood website.)

This got to me too. I moved from NY to Paris and the fact that the days are so short in winter doesn't make up for the fact that they are quite long in the summer. I wake up at 6 and there is no sunlight until 8 these days. Even moving to the south of France wouldn't help much.

I live in Norway. My sunrises are a little after 9:30. IN a couple weeks, it'll be a half an hour later. Sunset is before 3 in the afternoon. If you wake up late enough and get lucky enough not to have cloud cover, you can get some weak sunlight that won't be enough to give vitamin D even if you could spend enough time outside without long sleeves on.

Realistically, folks aren't getting sun in the morning.

I'm not looking to move south, though. I moved up here for marriage and the weather has just been a nice benefit.

Whenever people talk about the benefits of direct sunlight, those wavelengths make it through clouds (just to a lesser degree). Whereas 5-10 minutes morning exposure is plenty without clouds, it is recommended to increase to 15-20 minutes during cloud cover. In both cases, face towards (but don't look directly at) the sun for the best effect.

> Sunlight into my eyeballs within 15 minutes of waking up? Forget about it between October and March.

Think outside the box, wake up at noon.

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