Re: Lights Out

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 5/26/2002 3:16:23 PM Central Daylight Time,

R@... writes:

> Sheila,

>

> >>I remember Dr. Mercola writing about a dawn simulation clock he uses

> to wake up to all winter long. It is silent, no jangling, nerve

> shattering bells or buzzers, and he loves it. It sounds fantastic. <<

>

> May be! Although I hate to think of yet another electrical appliance to add

>

> to my already overloaded circuits, and more EMF's.. but maybe it's worth

> the compromise.. will have to look into it.

>

> -

You could just leave the curtains open when you go to bed then dawn would

wake you up, it does us.

Belinda

[Guest guest]

At 09:24 AM 5/26/2002 -0400, you wrote:

>Maybe that natural nighttime light at least isn't the " green " light of day

>that she warns against (in the form of green LED's, etc.). Maybe for light

>in the evening we should use lightbulbs that are in the reddish range?

Sounds like an interesting book!

I've noticed that whenever we have a blackout (it happens a lot around

here, the darn trees keep falling on the powerlines), and we use candles

for light, everyone gets relaxed and sleepy and less " jangly " . I keep

threatening to have " no electricity " nights where we have to do everything

by candle or flashlight (I'm not sending the kids around the house with a

candle!). We have wall-candles in a lot of the rooms which work pretty well.

I'm not sure it's the color of the light or the intensity. I think for the

last 10,000 years or so we sat around campfires, torches, etc (even in a

cave), and fires often ran all night, so it wasn't totally dark (but it

would be very orange light). Stars and torches are both very dim lights.

And really, even to the beginning of this century we were using candles.

Heidi Schuppenhauer

Trillium Custom Software Inc.

heidis@...

[Guest guest]

Heidi,

Wall candles sound like a great idea. I wouldn't want kids to be

walking around carrying candles either (how many kids can even walk

without running?!)

I'm trying to at least keep the lights dimmer in the evening, and be

more aware of when the sun sets to change my activities accordingly.

In the book she says that in summer we're supposed to stay up later

and eat more carbs, so we don't have to start working toward the full

hibernation routine until mid-September <whew>.

> for light, everyone gets relaxed and sleepy and less " jangly " .

Sounds right. We think that TV is something to do in the evening to

wind down and relax, but it just makes us more jangly and caught in a

light-toxicity addictive pattern that makes it hard to turn it off.

>> I'm not sure it's the color of the light or the intensity. I think

for the last 10,000 years or so we sat around campfires, torches, etc

Hmm... just conjecturing here.. maybe since that was " only " the last

10,000 years which is all still the Neolithic, even that behavior

might have been more indicative of a cultural aberration than of

evolutionarily hardwired patterns.. ?

Or.. maybe it's the color spectrum of fire is less hormonally

disruptive than artificial light?

-

[Guest guest]

> >> I'm not sure it's the color of the light or the intensity. I

> think for the last 10,000 years or so we sat around campfires,

> torches, etc

>

> Hmm... just conjecturing here.. maybe since that was " only " the

> last 10,000 years which is all still the Neolithic, even that

> behavior might have been more indicative of a cultural aberration

> than of evolutionarily hardwired patterns.. ?

Actually, fire has been in use by hominids since at least as far back

as homo erectus. Homo erectus came on the scene about 1.8 million

years ago...so people have probably been sitting around fires and

torches for something closer to that timescale.

[Guest guest]

> > >> I'm not sure it's the color of the light or the intensity. I

> > think for the last 10,000 years or so we sat around campfires,

> > torches, etc

> >

> > Hmm... just conjecturing here.. maybe since that was " only " the

> > last 10,000 years which is all still the Neolithic, even that

> > behavior might have been more indicative of a cultural aberration

> > than of evolutionarily hardwired patterns.. ?

>

> Actually, fire has been in use by hominids since at least as far

back

> as homo erectus. Homo erectus came on the scene about 1.8 million

> years ago...so people have probably been sitting around fires and

> torches for something closer to that timescale.

>

>

Hi,

I remember Dr. Mercola writing about a dawn simulation clock he uses

to wake up to all winter long. It is silent, no jangling, nerve

shattering bells or buzzers, and he loves it. It sounds fantastic.

Sheila

[Guest guest]

Sheila,

>>I remember Dr. Mercola writing about a dawn simulation clock he uses

to wake up to all winter long. It is silent, no jangling, nerve

shattering bells or buzzers, and he loves it. It sounds fantastic. <<

May be! Although I hate to think of yet another electrical appliance to add

to my already overloaded circuits, and more EMF's.. but maybe it's worth

the compromise.. will have to look into it.

-

[Guest guest]

Belinda,

>>You could just leave the curtains open when you go to bed then dawn

would wake you up, it does us. <<

The problem with that for me in suburbia, is that I have a lot of light

coming in my window, so in order to achieve the total darkness for sleeping

that is recommended, I have to use curtains that totally block out light.

If they're doing the job of blocking the street light at night, they're

also blocking the natural sunlight at dawn.

I remember only once in my life, when I was in college, I slept at a

friend's house in a rural area where I experienced *total* silence and

total darkness at night. It was such an unusual experience, and I had to

get used to it, but I could see how living that way could really shift a

lot of internal processes for the better.

I figure that in a cave, people didn't have street lights coming in

:-) but maybe the dawn light did.

-

[Guest guest]

At 02:57 PM 5/26/2002 -0400, you wrote:

>Hmm... just conjecturing here.. maybe since that was " only " the last

>10,000 years which is all still the Neolithic, even that behavior

>might have been more indicative of a cultural aberration than of

>evolutionarily hardwired patterns.. ?

>

>Or.. maybe it's the color spectrum of fire is less hormonally

>disruptive than artificial light?

>

>-

:

I don't know -- I just go by how things feel. But the idea that they give

in books that it takes a million years for a species to change just isn't

accurate: a species can become a whole new species in a mere 1,500 years,

given enough pressure.

Plus, I think there IS evidence for some kind of hereditary learning

mechanism that isn't dependent on " survival of the fittest " : Chomsky made a

good case for all humans having the same basic " language structure "

hardwired into their brains. Watching my little boy go nuts over cars --

which were only invented 100 years ago, can you believe it? -- makes me

wonder. And I've always felt an intense desire to weave and spin and raise

animals -- well, my ancestors were doing that for the past few thousand

years, though I haven't known anyone personally who did that (living in LA

growing up!). I don't think anyone knows how an oddity like " humans "

actually gets knowledge hardwired into the brain, but I think natural

selection isn't necessarily the driving process.

But that gets into science-fiction speculation. I think 10,000 years is

plenty time (and like said, it's likely been a lot longer) to make

" fire " a comforting thought and " char-broiled " a comforting concept. And

the biology for " when it gets dark it's time to go to sleep " has probably

been there for ages!

They sell the " dawn simulation " clocks around here. It's not a bad idea!

(As long as the power doesn't go out when you are asleep!).

Heidi Schuppenhauer

Trillium Custom Software Inc.

heidis@...