Hi again, sorry I have not checked back here in a long while. I've been put on to an idea that I think may help epilepsy sufferers, I suspect that it would have helped my sister. I did a brief search and I could not find anything so I'm posting it here.
My sister used to get seizures when she would get too tired. It was a combination of things, but staying up too late would very often put her over the edge. I'm a bit of an insomniac myself, as are other members of the family. And I thought it was just the way I was. However, I'm not so sure. If you can find a way to get more sleep (going to bed earlier) and better quality sleep, then that would have flow on effects with raising seizure thresholds.
So what I've learned recently is that our eyes have receptors that detect blue light (480nm approx). These sensors suppress the production of melatonin according to how much (e.g. the intensity of) blue light they receive. Melatonin is a hormone that regulates sleep.
Historically, these sensors in our eyes would basically stop receiving blue light from before sundown to sunup. This is how humans and other mammals have functioned for basically millions of years. This worked great up until the time humans started getting incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, because even camp fires, candles and fireplaces give off very little blue light. So what would normally happen is that there would be a lag time in the evening for a few hours where we wind down and then naturally fall asleep with little effort as more melatonin is produced.
However, we now have the ability to make blue light at will in the evenings. We often stay up late on our computers at night, looking into lots of blue light with the aid of incandescents or fluorescents. Because our eyes are receiving blue light until we hit the pillow, we haven't been producing much melatonin during this time and so we find it hard to get to sleep.
The sleep that we get will be poor for the first few hours as our brains still think that we are in the evening, even though we are very fatigued. So not only do we go to bed later, we get less good sleep when we do get to bed. This means that our brains and bodies don't get the chance to rest properly.
If you want to try eliminating blue light in the evening, there are a few things you can try. Get some fluorescent bug lights for use in the evening. These have yellow glass which blocks the blue light that bugs are attracted to. Turn off the other lights in your house. Block the blue LEDs you have in your house as well with some blue tak or black tape. Probably turn your TV off early too, or you might be able to selectively dim the blues in a new TV.
For your computer, you can try f.lux or redshift. These are some really cool programs that automatically remove the blue (make the screen more red) at night.
I think it's well worth a try. So far I've done this for 3 days, and every day I've been to sleep before 11:20pm or so, and normally I'm up until 1:30am-3:00am. I am feeling more rested than I have in years. It may be part placebo, but there is also research to back it up. I feel ready to sleep when my brain hits the pillow, I don't feel like I have to "fight" the thoughts racing around inside my head. It has been a long time since I haven't had to battle in order to "switch off". I'm also feeling happier and healthier.
p.s. unfortunately I can't post links, as I have wanted to buttress the article with some evidence. Either maybe someone can enable it so I can post the original post I wrote, or you can just look at the "Melatonin" article in wikipedia, and google some other things, e.g. incandescent spectrum, or fluorescent spectrum, redshift dk, f.lux.
My sister used to get seizures when she would get too tired. It was a combination of things, but staying up too late would very often put her over the edge. I'm a bit of an insomniac myself, as are other members of the family. And I thought it was just the way I was. However, I'm not so sure. If you can find a way to get more sleep (going to bed earlier) and better quality sleep, then that would have flow on effects with raising seizure thresholds.
So what I've learned recently is that our eyes have receptors that detect blue light (480nm approx). These sensors suppress the production of melatonin according to how much (e.g. the intensity of) blue light they receive. Melatonin is a hormone that regulates sleep.
Historically, these sensors in our eyes would basically stop receiving blue light from before sundown to sunup. This is how humans and other mammals have functioned for basically millions of years. This worked great up until the time humans started getting incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, because even camp fires, candles and fireplaces give off very little blue light. So what would normally happen is that there would be a lag time in the evening for a few hours where we wind down and then naturally fall asleep with little effort as more melatonin is produced.
However, we now have the ability to make blue light at will in the evenings. We often stay up late on our computers at night, looking into lots of blue light with the aid of incandescents or fluorescents. Because our eyes are receiving blue light until we hit the pillow, we haven't been producing much melatonin during this time and so we find it hard to get to sleep.
The sleep that we get will be poor for the first few hours as our brains still think that we are in the evening, even though we are very fatigued. So not only do we go to bed later, we get less good sleep when we do get to bed. This means that our brains and bodies don't get the chance to rest properly.
If you want to try eliminating blue light in the evening, there are a few things you can try. Get some fluorescent bug lights for use in the evening. These have yellow glass which blocks the blue light that bugs are attracted to. Turn off the other lights in your house. Block the blue LEDs you have in your house as well with some blue tak or black tape. Probably turn your TV off early too, or you might be able to selectively dim the blues in a new TV.
For your computer, you can try f.lux or redshift. These are some really cool programs that automatically remove the blue (make the screen more red) at night.
I think it's well worth a try. So far I've done this for 3 days, and every day I've been to sleep before 11:20pm or so, and normally I'm up until 1:30am-3:00am. I am feeling more rested than I have in years. It may be part placebo, but there is also research to back it up. I feel ready to sleep when my brain hits the pillow, I don't feel like I have to "fight" the thoughts racing around inside my head. It has been a long time since I haven't had to battle in order to "switch off". I'm also feeling happier and healthier.
p.s. unfortunately I can't post links, as I have wanted to buttress the article with some evidence. Either maybe someone can enable it so I can post the original post I wrote, or you can just look at the "Melatonin" article in wikipedia, and google some other things, e.g. incandescent spectrum, or fluorescent spectrum, redshift dk, f.lux.
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