As I’ve got older, I’ve found I’ve wakened at 2 or 3 in the morning and have found it difficult to get back to sleep for a couple of hours or more.

As I’m retired, sometimes I can sleep in to compensate for this, but this is not always possible. As a result I’ve taken to napping to compensate if I’m feeling tired in the late afternoon. It doesn’t seem to make any difference to my sleep patterns whether I nap or not.

I’m healthy, not overweight and take regular exercise.

One thing I will say is that shifting your evening light-intake from blue light to red light (the glasses) allows your body to make more melatonin naturally.

*probably as an adaption for safety from predators ….

dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2145853/Eating-late-night-DOES-make-fat-researchers-say.html

Earlier in the day is better. Lots of Paleo people advise skipping breakfast and eating later. However, for sleep anyway (and for weight loss) (and cortisol reduction) this is precisely backwards.

Primates naturally gather food and eat during light, not dark. We go to ground at night (probably as an adaption for safety from adaptation as well as to regenerate our neural transmitters for our large and complex brains and to sift through memories, keeping the more useful ones). Until light made the opposite feasible, but our cirdadian rhythms and hormones then get out of whack.

bbc.com/news/health-27422547

sagepub.com/content/17/4/284.short

Wiley and Formby wrote a highly credible book on the subject (Lights Out) and since reading that there is much about diet, lifestyle, and environmental matters that became much clearer. As I result I became more respectful for the involvement of hormones in peoples actions and behaviour and figured that wellness ought to accompany a history of hormones describing normal balances and following normal rhythms. Illness, chronic illness, is something we ought to expect to follow chronic hormonal imbalances and aberrant cycles.

After reading ‘Lights Out’ I try to sleep for at least nine hours if I can, but certainly I am mindful that sufficient sleep, preferably taken when it;s dark outdoors, and in a room which is adequately dark, is one route to help establish a datum from which healthy hormonal levels, balances, and rhythms ought to follow. On a work-day (really night) I cannot retire until around 6am. I’ve had blackout lining with curtains for years, but lately I’ve doubled-up and have a blackout roller-blind over the window too. Then as if that isn’t quite enough I do detect an eye-mask cuts out even more light, making for better sleep, longer sleep, a more balanced and rested feeling on awakening, and fewer yawns over the course of my working ‘day’.

Coming to an appreciation of benefits is relatively easy if approached from the natural angle, but being a newcomer to interest in hormones and physiology brings its frustrations. To mention increased levels of cortisol and increased measures of inflammation invites repost since it is said cortisol is a powerful ant-inflammatory. Paradoxically chronic hypercortisolemia is mooted to associate with raised levels of homocysteine; with homocysteine being recognised as a highly reactive oxidising agent capable of conveying oxidative stress and promoting the advance to the kinds of chronic illnesses in which inflammation is regularly suggested to be a factor too. My present working understanding is that raised levels or cortisol raise demands upon methyl donating antioxidants and it is scarcity of of methyl donors, ralative to demand, that might then result in basal levels of oxidative stress trending higher. Higher homocysteine detected by tests might indicate demand for B6, B12, and folic acid has consistently exceeded supply. Hence the consequence of chronically disturbed levels of cortisol may run counter to the impression stemming from one of of its claimed primary functions. Endocrinology is mind-field, potentially.

Susan, I have had f.lux on my computer since end of last year and it works as it should. However my latitude is close to the artic circle and the program doesn’t allow such high latitudes so I have to settle for 65 degrees north and that is close enough.

Another solution when using a computer in the evening could be to download something like “f.lux” (F.LUX) which adapts the colour of your computer’s display according to the time of day.

In the evening, the light from your screen is more on the orange spectrum, filtering out the blue light. But during the day, the light returns to the “daylight” setting.

The filter can be turned off whenever you don’t want it, and you can set the timings to suit your own requirements.