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Comment by herf | Hacker News Reader

I made f.lux, and this is something I study a lot.

This study was done on rodents, and the problem with the reporting of it is that rats are >100x more sensitive to this kind of light than humans are.

For white light, below about 5-10 lux, it is very hard to measure melatonin suppression in humans. This study finds that rats have significant melatonin suppression at 0.1 lux, which has been known since 1974 (Minneman et al) at least.

Still, don't sleep with the TV on, and don't see bright (room) light within a couple hours before bed, because that will actually suppress total melatonin by a significant percentage.

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> Still, don't sleep with the TV on, and don't see bright (room) light within a couple hours before bed, because that will actually suppress total melatonin by a significant percentage.

How do you avoid seeing bright light in the last few hours before bed?

Thank you for making f.lux, by the way. It's very cool, and I hope it gets more thorough biomed testing soon.

The whole point of f.lux is avoiding bright light near bedtime.

Yeah, I know that. Specifically bright blue lights. I wondered what people did to avoid blue light in the few hours before they went to bed. Turns out dim, orange lamps are one answer.

Turn off the TV, get something like F.lux on your mobile/tablet or don't use it and if you need light get something with low-blue output.

I searched for a long time to find a room light that avoided blue light and you have options with dimmer stands and certain bulbs. I ended up with some absurd-looking salt lamp that casts a soft orange light and has a dimmer (and allegedly releases magical ions that purify or clean the air -- not buying this last one).

Ah right, so just replacing room lights. Thanks.

Most products that claim to produce ions are actually making ozone, which is very harmful to your health: http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/ozonegen.html

Thanks for making f.lux! <3

Could you tell us about how the software works?

Thank you so much for f.lux ... My sleep specialist had this same recommendation for my DPSD. Thanks again!

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