So after sun goes down, we should ideally have red light only, and below eye-level, correct?
I’m also very curious what this all looks like in real-life for you, especially in the winter… maybe ideally and REAL life, if that makes sense lol I’ve seen you say somewhere that you should have light no brighter than a single candle (after sundown?) and I just don’t know how to navigate that when the sun is setting at like 5:30 in the winter. What do you do from sunset til bedtime?
There are 2 paths—if you go “full circadian”, you will end up in a polyphasic sleep pattern where you sleep early, wake up for a few hours around midnight, and then sleep again until dawn. I do this in the middle of the winter, especially noticing the full moon gives us another period of light and activity (though the littlest ones sleep through easily—making this a particularly rare opportunity to spend time with my husband). Alternatively, if you can use incandescents or amber lights or amber blue blocking glasses, you still have partial melatonin release (melatonin isn’t all or nothing) and stay up until a normal-ish bedtime and sleep through the night. If you compare candlelight to the circadian sleep lights, you’ll realize candles are actually pretty bright! Much brighter than the red lights, which are more for safety if you need to get up in the middle of the night (which is why a lot of them come with sensors and timers so they turn on near your feet as you approach a staircase or bathroom, but then shut off after a time so the house returns to darkness). Hope that helps! I shared more about the day-to-day realities of this here (and keep in mind, there is a different polyphasic pattern that can happen in summer with those extra short nights): https://www.brighterdaysdarkernights.com/p/q-can-blackout-curtains-cause-toddler?utm_source=publication-search
This is so interesting. I’d heard of the polyphasic sleep pattern but never thought much about it… but now that I’m thinking about it, if I go to sleep too early, around 8 or 9 pm, I inevitably get woken up by one of my kids and can’t fall back asleep for a couple hours in the middle of the night. Maybe it’s related 🤔 but I’m definitely not going to bed early enough to make up for the missed middle of the night sleep.
I also do not think candles are that bright! Trying to use candles to do things, I definitely have a newfound respect when reading Little House on the Prairie 😂
This makes a lot of sense, thank you!
So after sun goes down, we should ideally have red light only, and below eye-level, correct?
I’m also very curious what this all looks like in real-life for you, especially in the winter… maybe ideally and REAL life, if that makes sense lol I’ve seen you say somewhere that you should have light no brighter than a single candle (after sundown?) and I just don’t know how to navigate that when the sun is setting at like 5:30 in the winter. What do you do from sunset til bedtime?
There are 2 paths—if you go “full circadian”, you will end up in a polyphasic sleep pattern where you sleep early, wake up for a few hours around midnight, and then sleep again until dawn. I do this in the middle of the winter, especially noticing the full moon gives us another period of light and activity (though the littlest ones sleep through easily—making this a particularly rare opportunity to spend time with my husband). Alternatively, if you can use incandescents or amber lights or amber blue blocking glasses, you still have partial melatonin release (melatonin isn’t all or nothing) and stay up until a normal-ish bedtime and sleep through the night. If you compare candlelight to the circadian sleep lights, you’ll realize candles are actually pretty bright! Much brighter than the red lights, which are more for safety if you need to get up in the middle of the night (which is why a lot of them come with sensors and timers so they turn on near your feet as you approach a staircase or bathroom, but then shut off after a time so the house returns to darkness). Hope that helps! I shared more about the day-to-day realities of this here (and keep in mind, there is a different polyphasic pattern that can happen in summer with those extra short nights): https://www.brighterdaysdarkernights.com/p/q-can-blackout-curtains-cause-toddler?utm_source=publication-search
This is so interesting. I’d heard of the polyphasic sleep pattern but never thought much about it… but now that I’m thinking about it, if I go to sleep too early, around 8 or 9 pm, I inevitably get woken up by one of my kids and can’t fall back asleep for a couple hours in the middle of the night. Maybe it’s related 🤔 but I’m definitely not going to bed early enough to make up for the missed middle of the night sleep.
I also do not think candles are that bright! Trying to use candles to do things, I definitely have a newfound respect when reading Little House on the Prairie 😂
I enjoyed this ☺️💡Could I please have the citation for the light spectrum schematic?
Of course! Just added the citation to the post, and here’s the link from the Practitioner Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CJUAhbT9n0mTi5R5qd5Vsc_m0UD_rQ4m/view?usp=drivesdk