Dim Evening Lights
During the winter there is a lot of darkness and time in the evening when most of us are indoors with the lights on. Where I live, the sun sets around 4pm in December! One thing you can do to support your circadian rhythm and keep your melatonin levels up at the end of the day is to protect your eyes from artificial light that has high levels of blue wavelengths. This is also important in the morning before sunrise. You want the first light you see in the morning to be the natural light of sunrise. This keeps your circadian rhythm intact which not only affects your sleep but also all of your metabolic and cellular repair processes.
Most of our indoor lighting these days is heavy on the blue, that's what makes it seem so bright. I used to love how bright the new bulbs were until I learned that these lights were disrupting my sleep. This is also true of all the screens you might be looking at. If we were living outside in nature, we would be away from all of this but since this is impractical for most of us, I want to share some tips for how to make living indoors on a long winter evening easier on your body.
Choose a few light fixtures and table lamps in your home and replace the bulbs with incandescent bulbs or, better yet, red light bulbs. You probably won't find them locally but they are available on-line. Use these lights in the evening and avoid your bright overhead lighting.
Spend time in the darkness sitting by the fire if you have a woodstove or gas fireplace. This provides the added bonus of infrared light that your body needs.
Read a paper copy of a book using a book light or a table lamp instead of spending time on your phone or other devices.
If you want to make more of an investment in this lifestyle you can purchase blue-blocking glasses. These are especially helpful if you need to go out in the evening where you are not in control of the lighting. Wear them to the store or out to a restaurant. Look for glasses that have colored lenses as the clear ones only block a small amount of blue light.
Once you start doing this you will notice that there are a lot of lights in your space that are too bright! This is when you might choose to cover those little things like clocks or refrigerator lights with red or orange transparent film or place black electrical tape over flashing lights.
Use these ideas to lean in the direction of nature and older technologies. See links below for resources.
Product Recommendations
Incandescent bulbs
Search for INCANDESCENT light bulbs. Also Edison style bulbs but some of the fancy ones are LED so read the product description. These were banned in the US in 2023 for energy efficiency reasons so they may not be available where you live but here is an example of an incandescent bulb and another example of an LED “superwarm” bulb for purchasing.
Removing blue light from screens and devices
To change your phone screen to red light mode, follow the instructions at these links iPhone or Android.
You can also purchase software that allows you to control the amount of blue light emitted from your computer monitor. I use a software from Iris.
Blue light blocking glasses
Transparent film for dimming appliance lights
Here is an option for filtering lights that you cannot replace