My simple hack for increased alertness and improved cognitive functioning: very bright light

After about 10 months of almost daily use of this lighting, I have not noticed any decrease in effectiveness.

Thank you for waiting to see whether this works in the long term before posting.

If you do, please provide feedback on whether it works as well for you as it does for me. Any questions?

Why not do a self-experiment? It's not like turning on lights is hard to randomize.

I've seen the light as well. Fiat lux!

Also like your argumentum ad savannam africanus. That should be a thing. Recreating the desert's albedo.

First time commenting here. A friend linked this thread on Facebook, and have something to add about the possible mechanisms of light therapy.

So far as I am aware, the mood and concentration enhancing effects of light therapy work primarily on the Serotonin -> Melatonin synthesis that occurs in our brains.

Basically, when it gets dark and gloomy, our brains start manufacturing melatonin, to make us feel tired and sleepy. In animals such as bears, the winter induced melatonin is a signal that it is time to hibernate.

The interesting part is that the chemical from which melatonin is synthesized is serotonin, which as we know is involved in mood, appetite, sleep and all sorts of human behaviour, and is the primary neurotransmitter system targeted by SSRI antidepressants.

Hence less light causes more serotonin to turn into melatonin, which makes us feel both tired and potentially moody. Therefore its reasonable to hypothesize that light therapy works by reducing the rate of melatonin synthesis and maintaining higher levels of serotonin.

I have never heard of light therapy affecting adenosine levels in the brain. This doesn't mean that it doesn't, just that I am unaware of evidence that this is the case. A quick pubmed search didn't reveal any papers to back up this hypothesis either.

In my personal mood and productivity experimentation, I have found that supplementing my diet with 5-hydroxy-tryptophan (5HTP) in addition to using a high lux lamp does wonders for my mood and productivity (sorry I cannot quantify "wonders").

Basically, the synthesis path normally goes: Proteins -> Amino Acids (including tryptophan) -> 5-hydroxy-tryptophan (which is capable of crossing the blood brain barrier, and does so but in competition with other amino acids) -> Serotonin (5HT) -> Melatonin (when dark or in low light, technically a lack of light hitting the retina).

So, potentially supplementing with 5HTP or another source of tryptophan in addition to light therapy should be more effective at enhancing mood/productivity by both increasing the rate of serotonin synthesis and decreasing the rate of serotonin metabolism. Assuming serotonin is responsible for these effects, of course.

I immediately like this idea.

My personal subjective experience is also that I find very bright artificial light after dark improves my mood, alertness and cognitive ability.

However, the personal subjective experience isn't universal: many people I've shared home or work spaces with have complained when I've installed bright lighting. They've found it too bright, or too clinical, or too much glare, or gives them a headache or eyestrain. I have several co-workers who routinely turn off office lights (which I'd prefer to be even brighter) and replace them with dim uplighters.

Also, I'm not at all sure that my personal subjective experience is a robust effect.

The effect of lighting on human productivity is the canonical example of a difficult-to-study phenomenon. The Hawthorne Effect - where research shows an effect of an intervention because some research is being done - is legendarily named after some studies in to the effect on factory productivity of lighting. The story goes that increasing lighting increased productivity - and then changing it back to what it was before also increased productivity. The truth is a little more complicated than that - the Wikipedia article on the Hawthorne Effect touches on some of the issues - but it remains an elusive phenomenon. Also, pretty much all the 'research' I can easily put my hand on is obvious puff pieces by lighting companies, or companies showing off how much they have improved things by changing lighting.

Any self-test is hard to blind; as others have noted, a change in lighting is likely to be particularly hard to blind even if you have a separate experimenter. However, perception of brightness is to some degree relative (we judge how bright it is at least partly by comparison to how bright it was where we've just been), so with a bit of careful design it could be made less obtrusive - e.g. switching identical-looking bulbs while the subject is out of the room, and have the subject come in through an anteroom that has very low lighting so the experimental room will always seem bright, even if it's normal level.

I also have been using bright lights to help stay alert. This has helped a lot getting used to polyphasic sleep. (It also helps to use a sleep mask. Bright light while awake, no light while sleeping.) Since I started, I have noticed that I have less need for this effect, but it is still nice.

I had looked into the light therapy bulbs, but the price made me think I should at least try the brighter conventional bulbs first, and this turned out to work fine.

With the understanding that I only have a few minutes to check for research data:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1801013

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21298068 - "cognitive response ... to light at levels as low as 40 lux, is blue-shifted"

Thanks for a useful practical tip.

the color of the light doesn't actually make a difference. The amount of light does.

Is that your own observation, or the result of broader research ? I always wondered if light "temperature" did affect mood/awakeness and found contradictory results when making a quick search, so I still have a blank spot on my map on that.

I think it'd be interesting to do some formal data collection on this idea even if there isn't going to be any control group. If you would, please PM me or comment in this thread if you're planning to try it out, and I will contact everyone who said they were trying it out in a few months and put together a short report.

Edit: Or put your email in this form.

You can get CFL bulbs at the 105-watt level, and they're huge but bright and daylight-balanced too.

I recently bought this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005FRCUHY/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00

Unfortunately out of stock now, but it was under $30 for a 2-pack at the time. Note that I had to discard a smelly 65W bulb from Square Perfect, but LimoStudios seems able to handle its own heat. 2x 105W CFLs makes a brilliant blue-white light that does seem a bit like daylight.

If anyone knows of a floor lamp that will shade standard-socket light bulbs that are literally a foot long, I wouldn't mind a recommendation. My current setup is kinda hacky.

I've noticed the same effect after installing 240 watts (that is, 25kLumens) of LED lighting in my living room. I stay more alert while they're on, and then pretty much crash when they turn off or I leave the room.

That was for an aquarium, though, and that much lighting actually is pretty expensive up-front.

David Chapman has a neat method for getting a very large amount of light/lumens very cheaply in upfront & operating costs: use LED light bars sold for vehicular use and rewire them for normal household electricity consumption.

Looks promising. How does your setup compare to light therapy devices such as the GoLite?

I found a cheap lux meter helpful in convincing myself to actually make a change in my lighting. I moved my workspace lighting from 130lux at my desk to 500lux , and have found it easier to stay alert in the evenings.

I believe it also improved my ability to judge indoor lighting levels, but haven't tested this.

Oh wow this is so obvious in hindsight. Trying this asap thank you.

http://www.amazon.com/Full-Spectrum-Light-Bulb-5500K/dp/B0019HVHMS/ref=cm_cr_dp_asin_lnk

Good stuff. i recommend daylight-spectrum CFLs - about £5 each off eBay for 22W (100W-equivalent), compared to £2 in the shops for the horrible yellow 22W. I fill my house with these, and they really are just so much nicer than anything that isn't daylight-spectrum.

If anyone is curious, my estimate of a potentially similar effect based on the weather would require a self-experiment of only ~70 days. I hope someone does run one.

EDIT: with additional data, the correlation has shrunk and so the necessary n has increased substantially to 1600 days.

How much did this cost you?

The cheapest solution for very bright light that I'm aware of is something like these photography bulbs: http://www.amazon.com/CowboyStudio-105-Fluorescent-Daylight-Photography/dp/B004L75BGQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358542854&sr=8-2&keywords=photography+lightbulb ($15/bulb, ~4500 lumens from each)

but I'd be interested if others have found cheaper solutions.

Good thing you reminded me.

I've had problems with motivation and mood.

I had a light box that I set across the room for a month, and my mood and motivation both improved. Got out of the habit of using it.

I've noticed a stimulating effect for the rest of the day just from being in the Home Depot lighting department for 20 minutes.

Another SAD light treatment I haven't tried because it's annoyingly pricey (~$300) for the materials involved:

Valkee Bright Light Headset Valkee substitutes the mood-elevating effects of the sun, by channeling bright light directly to photosensitive regions of the brain through the ear canal. That’s why Valkee increases energy, and can act as a preventative or treatment of mood swings. Valkee is used daily for just 6-12 minutes.

Valkee has CE Class II(a) medical device certification and is clinically tested.

http://www.valkee.com

Basically, the light form a couple of white LEDs pumped into your ears. I feel a little eyestrain from the light box, and find it inconvenient at work. They say to use it for 6-12 minutes, but I'd probably overdo it and try them during the day.

Could use some more persuasive hand-waving.

It's funny. I use F.Lux both on my phone and computer and turn on my light to help wake up in the morning but I've never really thought about optimizing with more than averagely bright lights.

Does anyone know if there are links to purchase some of this online?

http://examine.com/nutrition/let-the-sun-shine-in-to-your-retinal-ganglion-cells/

I bought these with a 4 socket adapter. However, I think my lamp can't power them all. Does anyone know a higher output lamp?

Actually I'm not even sure if that is how lights work. If someone can explain how I can the power that goes to the light bulbs, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Most of the comments on this thread are about people who seem to find this useful or think that this will make a difference positively. While I think the idea interesting, and would like to try it out, I am one of those who don't seem to like really bright lighting. In fact, at work, I've had some of the overhead lights removed to make it generally less bright ambiently. I tend to suffer from eyestrain or seem to get a headache, though now that I think about it, I am not sure if this was because the over head lights were reflecting badly off of my computer screen or not.

Anyway, I'd like to get the opinions of and comments from people who generally turn off lights at work (such that the ambient light source is behind the monitor) , and likewise, even better if they have tried this out.

I like to make things dark so I can sleep better; I currently sleep with my head under multiple blankets. This means that I don't actually get any light in the morning until the blankets come off of my head. And that causes its own set of problems.

In recent months I have been going to my doctor about a sleep condition- I frequently and uncontrollably fall asleep at a particular time of day (about 8pm to 11pm). In my own experimentation I have found that bright light is one of the best ways to deal with this. In fact I am considering moving in order to help, as my current apartment has only lamps.

105 watts of incandescents with halogen gas, billed as the equivalent of 130 watts of incandescent light. And I got an adaptor like this that lets me screw four of those into the same socket in the ceiling.

I'm unclear on the physics of lightning. If you have four lights that are the equivalent of 130 watts each, is the light output equivalent to a single 520 watt light? Or is there some sort of nonlinear effect?

I don't like light.

I have noticed that once it gets dark outside, I have to turn on the light in my room to be at all productive.

I wonder if wiring bright lights to turn on automatically will lead to more alertness in the morning. I find alarm clocks jarring and the first 5 minutes of being awake feels awful. Perhaps having light wake you is more natural?