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I had this too. Started after lay off in October. What helped was a sleep and work system, oriented around being offline that was inspired by nature and from m

by mannanj 3mo ago

I had this too. Started after lay off in October. What helped was a sleep and work system, oriented around being offline that was inspired by nature and from my earlier days in working in tech while car camping across the national parks. Basically: the sun wins in terms of how all energy on the earth is structured, and expressed. All manners of cycles of organisms and living systems are in relation to its rise and fall, and even its particular color spectrum phases (whether thats night oriented or day). I call this our real circadian rhythm; it's used to being signaled by the light of the sun and maybe fire for millions of years and it isn't until recent centuries when we started tricking our biology with LEDs and lights. So the solution is simple. Orient yourself around the light of the sun and make sure it's the first and last major light source you see; blue limiting is the most important part BEFORE sunrise and AFTER CUT OFF ALL BLUE LIGHT. On my Mac I use a red light filter (using it now, it's 11:07pm ET and the sun went down about 2.5 hours ago). It's really hard to stay alert and chatting with an LLM when the only light sources are red and you keep them dim at that. Our ancestors would rest when the sun's at its peak (~1:05 pm today) and that's a good time to divide my own day productively as well. With intentional breaks diving the middle of the day with sunlight anchoring it, my nervous system is more relaxed, and by the evening time, it's also ready to transition out of anything blue-light assisted and most intellectual work and problem solving falls into this bucket. It's really hard to explain but it really works so simply. To enjoy the process a little more I made this fun sun clock, check it out at https://sunsignal.app https://sunsignal.app

topgrain2 3mo ago
I once experimented with beeswax candles as my only after-dark light source. This meant no hyper-stimulating screen activities whatsoever, too. TV, phone, video games, browsing the web? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Just dim, warm light from actual flames. Cured my lifelong “night owl” “trait” in a couple days. Shockingly effective. Turned out to be hard to keep up and still, like, exist with other people, and you’d probably need to relax it a little in Winter unless your job lets you work reduced hours to kinda “hibernate” (otherwise when would you do anything that’s not work but requires light or electronics?) but it sure worked.
- mannanj 3mo ago
  That's so cool. And +1 to Beeswax candles. I have a dream we will orient ourselves with greater agency and autonomy and after traditional careers die if we get a UBI and still choose to work we would orient ourselves around the sun naturally and have time in the day for social lives.
  - topgrain2 3mo ago
    I picked beeswax because the petroleum-based ones smell terrible, and I found some that weren't much more expensive than unscented soy. They have a nice smell! But burning non-petroleum candles a couple hours each evening (and I found it took two tapers to have enough to comfortably read by) is pretty expensive. Plus burning anything isn't great for air quality, even if it smells OK. One person doing it in a full-sized house, alight, maybe. Three or more people in a house carrying around pairs of candles every night? You might start to notice the air quality and your shelves or walls getting a bit sooty. If I wanted to do it longer term I'd probably build a few shaded (it actually hurts to look directly at even something as dim as a single candle flame, let alone a slightly-brighter bulb, when your eyes are adjusted to low light; I didn't come up with a solution for this with my candles, in the ~3 weeks I was using them) nightlight-level-output battery powered lamps. Most of the lamps or lanterns you can buy have built-in LEDs these days (so, limited ability to modify them) and their dimmest setting is way brighter than two actual candles, plus you'd want a candle-warmth color temp and lots of them are cool sunlight-temp. So I think building a few would be the best option. Standard modern nighttime lighting started seeming insanely bright after a few days of doing the candle thing. It really takes very little light to navigate your house and do many tasks safely and comfortably, if you let your eyes adjust and don't have some kind of serious vision problems, and if you've got a few people awake in your house doing things after dark it's easy to have hundreds of times as much illumination active as anyone really needs. I also kinda liked carrying my light with me, rather than flipping switches from room to room.
    - mannanj 3mo ago
      I use the candles for a meditative gazing practice called trataka. Gazing at fire has never hurt me (edit: even at low light conditions), but usually feels calming, giving me more creativity as well. Also to optimize cost, I discovered beeswax tea light candles which are reasonably priced, between $0.30-$0.50/candle and I'd put them in these tiny single lanterns that you can carry around that make it more practical to use these for indoor light. I also found that having a incense burner device (theres ones where you use the beeswax candle under a metal mesh, as the source of heat (And now light too!) with my favorite resins like myrrh for scents also really helped set a great mood & regulate the nervous system for transition. I also would use these digital yellow candles that operate off of AA batteries and you can set on a schedule with a remote, they were so good and before I moved they would jsut automatically set the mood and light core areas with just enough light and brightness for night time. I suggest them! The brand I got was Aignis Flameless LED Candles (on Amazon). Get the orange and not white/blue. >Standard modern nighttime lighting started seeming insanely bright after a few days of doing the candle thing. It really takes very little light to navigate your house and do many tasks safely and comfortably Yes agreed. It's so nice once you get used to this, and I think this is how our ancestors lived for millions of years followed by candles, incandescent and then horrifyingly today's blue lights. Did you notice blue in specific feel incredibly unnerving and painful to look at at night even in low light output after adjusting to night time settings?

by mannanj 3mo ago

topgrain2 3mo ago

I once experimented with beeswax candles as my only after-dark light source. This meant no hyper-stimulating screen activities whatsoever, too. TV, phone, video games, browsing the web? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Just dim, warm light from actual flames. Cured my lifelong “night owl” “trait” in a couple days. Shockingly effective. Turned out to be hard to keep up and still, like, exist with other people, and you’d probably need to relax it a little in Winter unless your job lets you work reduced hours to kinda “hibernate” (otherwise when would you do anything that’s not work but requires light or electronics?) but it sure worked.

mannanj 3mo ago
That's so cool. And +1 to Beeswax candles. I have a dream we will orient ourselves with greater agency and autonomy and after traditional careers die if we get a UBI and still choose to work we would orient ourselves around the sun naturally and have time in the day for social lives.
- topgrain2 3mo ago
  I picked beeswax because the petroleum-based ones smell terrible, and I found some that weren't much more expensive than unscented soy. They have a nice smell! But burning non-petroleum candles a couple hours each evening (and I found it took two tapers to have enough to comfortably read by) is pretty expensive. Plus burning anything isn't great for air quality, even if it smells OK. One person doing it in a full-sized house, alight, maybe. Three or more people in a house carrying around pairs of candles every night? You might start to notice the air quality and your shelves or walls getting a bit sooty. If I wanted to do it longer term I'd probably build a few shaded (it actually hurts to look directly at even something as dim as a single candle flame, let alone a slightly-brighter bulb, when your eyes are adjusted to low light; I didn't come up with a solution for this with my candles, in the ~3 weeks I was using them) nightlight-level-output battery powered lamps. Most of the lamps or lanterns you can buy have built-in LEDs these days (so, limited ability to modify them) and their dimmest setting is way brighter than two actual candles, plus you'd want a candle-warmth color temp and lots of them are cool sunlight-temp. So I think building a few would be the best option. Standard modern nighttime lighting started seeming insanely bright after a few days of doing the candle thing. It really takes very little light to navigate your house and do many tasks safely and comfortably, if you let your eyes adjust and don't have some kind of serious vision problems, and if you've got a few people awake in your house doing things after dark it's easy to have hundreds of times as much illumination active as anyone really needs. I also kinda liked carrying my light with me, rather than flipping switches from room to room.
  - mannanj 3mo ago
    I use the candles for a meditative gazing practice called trataka. Gazing at fire has never hurt me (edit: even at low light conditions), but usually feels calming, giving me more creativity as well. Also to optimize cost, I discovered beeswax tea light candles which are reasonably priced, between $0.30-$0.50/candle and I'd put them in these tiny single lanterns that you can carry around that make it more practical to use these for indoor light. I also found that having a incense burner device (theres ones where you use the beeswax candle under a metal mesh, as the source of heat (And now light too!) with my favorite resins like myrrh for scents also really helped set a great mood & regulate the nervous system for transition. I also would use these digital yellow candles that operate off of AA batteries and you can set on a schedule with a remote, they were so good and before I moved they would jsut automatically set the mood and light core areas with just enough light and brightness for night time. I suggest them! The brand I got was Aignis Flameless LED Candles (on Amazon). Get the orange and not white/blue. >Standard modern nighttime lighting started seeming insanely bright after a few days of doing the candle thing. It really takes very little light to navigate your house and do many tasks safely and comfortably Yes agreed. It's so nice once you get used to this, and I think this is how our ancestors lived for millions of years followed by candles, incandescent and then horrifyingly today's blue lights. Did you notice blue in specific feel incredibly unnerving and painful to look at at night even in low light output after adjusting to night time settings?