Sleeping Under Red Light

[Agnichaga]

I is wondering if anyone has experimented with sleeping through the night under red light.

In the summer time I get plenty of exposure to the sun. In the winter though I get mostly an hour of sun before the blue lights of work time followed by the early darkness. I was just looking at Haidut's threads about riboflavin and dhea as more relevant to our circadian rhythms then actual light is. I'm wondering if during the darker time of the year it would be beneficial or not to this organism to get my eight hours of light while I'm sleeping with possibly some kind of shades over the eyes such that they can rest.

 

[Queequeg]

you would have to be careful not to overdose. red light is harmful over a certain threshold.

 

[lollipop]

you would have to be careful not to overdose. red light is harmful over a certain threshold.

+1

PS @Queequeg nice to see you again in the RPF neck of the woods

 

[cyclops]

I've heard recommendations on this site for using some of these red lights for short periods of time, like a minute or so, or risk overexposure. Surely, an hour would be too much, let alone an entire night.

 

[whit]

I is wondering if anyone has experimented with sleeping through the night under red light.

In the summer time I get plenty of exposure to the sun. In the winter though I get mostly an hour of sun before the blue lights of work time followed by the early darkness. I was just looking at Haidut's threads about riboflavin and dhea as more relevant to our circadian rhythms then actual light is. I'm wondering if during the darker time of the year it would be beneficial or not to this organism to get my eight hours of light while I'm sleeping with possibly some kind of shades over the eyes such that they can rest.

I've slept under a red light multiple times to see what the effect was like.
It was disruptive to my sleep even with eye covering.
The second time I had to turn it off mid way through. I wasn't groggy despite the time change and lack of sleep.
The next day I was in much less pain than previous days. I'm not certain if the pain reduction was at the expense of something else. Acclimation may be needed.
The next time I'll likely set it further away. All in all it was a good experience though.

 

[whit]

you would have to be careful not to overdose. red light is harmful over a certain threshold.

Good to see you again.
What would you say that threshold is?

 

[Cirion]

One important thing to note is that there are two ways of achieving sleep.

I would venture a guess that most people are used to the STRESS METHOD of sleeping. This is indicated by the hormone melatonin. This is how most people sleep, by having an elevated melatonin, typically elevated through exposure to darkness, often higher in the winter. High melatonin is indicated by how you feel when you wake up - groggy, like you've been hibernating.

In fact the healthy way of sleeping is indicated by high GABA. Most people are deficient in this. This type of sleep is pro-metabolic and restful. You would feel great, alert right out of bed before getting caffeine or anything, in a good mood, with a GABA promoted sleep.

I'm not saying sleeping under red-light is preferred, but I could see how it would be hard to sleep under a red light, if one is GABA-deficient, and the red light suppresses melatonin, you'd have no hormone to help you sleep at that point.

 

[Queequeg]

+1

PS @Queequeg nice to see you again in the RPF neck of the woods

Good to see you again.
What would you say that threshold is?

Thanks. nice to see you two as well :)

IIRC the therapeutic dose is between 10 and maybe 100 J/cm2 depending on treatment goal. I think Dr Hamblin from Harvard recommends 20-40. Of course you need to know the irradiance of the light at whatever distance to figure out the exposure time.
red light can be tricky

always a fun read
https://redlightman.com/blog/complete-guide-light-therapy-dosing/

 

[Agnichaga]

Thank you all for the thoughts.
I'm using an incandescent type heat lamp, 150 watts. I don't remember specifically the frequency range but it appears yellowish to the eye and I remember 650nm being in the range and not much in the blue. It's about 13 ft away from my bed at a 45 degree angle. I'm just guessing, but I imagine the exposure of light I would get from a full 8 hour sleep wouldn't be more than the exposure I get from being out in the sun for one hour on a June afternoon. The Redlightman guide is mostly about laser red light and measured in cm away from the body so there's no way for me to translate the prospective exposure.

A potential problem I see is that the sun is a perpetually varying intensity of a signal and is always moving relative to the body when being exposed. My setup would be a static signal. Would that be stressful to the body, such as instead of falling asleep to the sound of music one fell asleep to a moderately loud static tone such as 440 hz? Would a static signal that lasted 8 hours induce a stress response?

@Cirion That's very interesting to me. I was not aware of high GABA sleep. I'm about to research it, do you have any favorite references? Any interesting sleep studies that show differences in brain frequency wave patterns between the two modes of sleep?

 

[Lolinaa]

What about something like that, in a lamp in the corner of the bedroom?
I do sleep with it https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B073QSYP7X/

Next, I might try with this https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07CLQNYC3.

 

[tankasnowgod]

I is wondering if anyone has experimented with sleeping through the night under red light.

In the summer time I get plenty of exposure to the sun. In the winter though I get mostly an hour of sun before the blue lights of work time followed by the early darkness. I was just looking at Haidut's threads about riboflavin and dhea as more relevant to our circadian rhythms then actual light is. I'm wondering if during the darker time of the year it would be beneficial or not to this organism to get my eight hours of light while I'm sleeping with possibly some kind of shades over the eyes such that they can rest.

Dan Wich tried out an infrared light. Invisible Light While Sleeping

 

[Lejeboca]

What about something like that, in a lamp in the corner of the bedroom?
I do sleep with it https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B073QSYP7X/

I use similar, pretty much daily, on my bed-side table but shaded. I feel much better being able to get to sleep with light on, especially in the middle of the night if I wake up and trouble going back to sleep. I think, for me, the (diffused) red light during the night suppresses "stress-related" hormones such as cortisol. I definitely wake up in a better mood with the light being on.

 

[Light]

Slept with red light - 30W, 660nm - for the past few nights.
No trouble going to sleep, but I woke up really crancky and unhappy.
Things got better after eating something.
On another thread someone said sleeping with red light can depleat the liver glycogen and put you in ketosis, but a google search didn't bring anything like that up.

 

[MidBicep]

One important thing to note is that there are two ways of achieving sleep.

I would venture a guess that most people are used to the STRESS METHOD of sleeping. This is indicated by the hormone melatonin. This is how most people sleep, by having an elevated melatonin, typically elevated through exposure to darkness, often higher in the winter. High melatonin is indicated by how you feel when you wake up - groggy, like you've been hibernating.

In fact the healthy way of sleeping is indicated by high GABA. Most people are deficient in this. This type of sleep is pro-metabolic and restful. You would feel great, alert right out of bed before getting caffeine or anything, in a good mood, with a GABA promoted sleep.

I'm not saying sleeping under red-light is preferred, but I could see how it would be hard to sleep under a red light, if one is GABA-deficient, and the red light suppresses melatonin, you'd have no hormone to help you sleep at that point.

The last half a year my sleep schedule had been getting worse by the month, just like the quality of my sleep.
Yesterday I slept with incandescent light on and today I woke up much earlier (even though I've been sleep deprived the past week), got out of of bed very easily and my mood is great. Usually I can't sleep before the sunrise and if I try to sleep in the dark all sorts of stressful reactions start to happen.
This is life changing.

 

[whit]

The last half a year my sleep schedule had been getting worse by the month, just like the quality of my sleep.
Yesterday I slept with incandescent light on and today I woke up much earlier (even though I've been sleep deprived the past week), got out of of bed very easily and my mood is great. Usually I can't sleep before the sunrise and if I try to sleep in the dark all sorts of stressful reactions start to happen.
This is life changing.

Cool
Thanks for sharing