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by minhmeoke 1287 days ago
One fairly easy way to reduce Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is to expose yourself to 30 to 45 minutes of sunlight early in the morning by taking a walk outside within an hour after you wake up; this has multiple other health benefits:

- https://selecthealth.org/blog/2020/07/7-health-benefits-of-s...

Getting a lot of sunlight in the morning is also a good way to reduce jetlag by resetting your circadian rhythm to be in sync with your new time zone.

If you live in a climate where you do not have access to sufficient sunlight, one possible alternative is to buy an LED corn bulb (don't use it too late at night, otherwise you won't be able to fall asleep):

- https://blog.plover.com/tech/corn-bulbs.html

- https://meaningness.com/sad-light-lumens

- https://www.benkuhn.net/lux/

You can buy these fairly inexpensively from retailers like AliExpress if you are ok with waiting a month for shipping from China: https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=corn+bulb

If you live in North America, Japan, Korea, or Taiwan (120V AC), you want an E26 socket lamp, otherwise for 240V AC grids, you should consider E27 socket lamps.

2 comments

In my experience those corn bulbs aren't... amazing. Probably much better off getting a "regular" LED bulb, those get stupendously bright these days. 1000 lumen bulbs are easy enough to find, and a couple of those in a room gets it nice and bright.
Family pressures is definitely an underscrutinised aspect of the end of year slowdown. There is a palpable societal and cultural prerogative that you make yourself not only available to but are expected to buy shit for people you may want nothing to do with—ever.

Particularly people who live shitty lifestyles who expect you to "come over" and stay with them and put up with their domestic insanity.

Obviously this doesn’t apply to kids who are stuck with their parents and some family dynamics are complicated and awkward but if you’re not dependent on your family for financial support or whatever then just don’t. Or if they don’t suck that bad then fearlessly set boundaries for your time and mental health. Once you’re an adult and your parents age the power dynamic in most families flips where they want your company way more than you want theirs.

Also found family is an absolute blessing around the holidays. I’m surrounded by people who love me more and less conditionally than my own family.

Don’t wait for society to deem it acceptable to ghost your terrible family, just do it. Be the change. You won’t be alone, trust me. You would be shocked at the number of nuclear families who cut out their extended family and have “family-friend Christmas” and even more than that cut out one of the sides.