8,000 Easy Lumens For The Winter

Every winter, many people, myself included, feel generally less energetic. In some, this effect might be particularly pronounced, and result in clinical Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). This is likely due to reduced sunlight levels.
The consensus seems to be that supplementing light levels during the winter helps.
Here’s an easy setup that I use, and links to other resources that describe this at greater length.

My Setup

  • 7x bulbs: highly recommend 5000k temperature, 90+ CRI. Mine were 1100 lumens each.
This cost me $107 from Amazon, including taxes, as of Dec 2023.
I keep this on most of the day during the winter. In the past I’ve used a smart plug to automatically turn it on between 6 am and 6 pm.
Benefits of this setup
  • Pretty easy to set up relative to other high-lumen setups, I recommend putting it somewhere high up (eg: on a bookshelf)
    • I had a hard time figuring out how to set up corn bulbs or hanging lights
  • Pretty cheap.
  • Generally found that it works for me - I am much more wakeful during the winter months.
Notes
  • High color temperature (5000K+) seems to be important for inhibiting melatonin
  • In practice, I found low CRI unpleasant and 90 CRI was much better. If I were doing this again I might search for even higher CRI bulbs.
  • This setup on the low end of recommended lumens, which can go as high as 100k+. There’s other setups in the reading list you should consider, at the cost of being a little less easy to set up + cohere with your existing furniture.

Reading List

On SAD, light therapy & lighting

David Chapman, You Need More Lux
Lorien Psychiatry, Light Therapy
Richard Korzekwa, Why indoor lighting is hard to get right and how to fix it

Practical setup guides

Ben Kuhn, Your room can be as bright as the outdoors: two setups at ~35k lumens and ~30k lumens
David Chapman, Seriously bright light vs. winter blahs: has instructions about multiple different configurations from ~30k to 100k+ lumens
Eliezer Yudkowsky, How to build your own Lumenator: ~40k lumens per room
 

8,000 Easy Lumens For The Winter

Every winter, many people, myself included, feel generally less energetic. In some, this effect might be particularly pronounced, and result in clinical Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). This is likely due to reduced sunlight levels.
The consensus seems to be that supplementing light levels during the winter helps.
Here’s an easy setup that I use, and links to other resources that describe this at greater length.

My Setup

  • 7x bulbs: highly recommend 5000k temperature, 90+ CRI. Mine were 1100 lumens each.
This cost me $107 from Amazon, including taxes, as of Dec 2023.
I keep this on most of the day during the winter. In the past I’ve used a smart plug to automatically turn it on between 6 am and 6 pm.
Benefits of this setup
  • Pretty easy to set up relative to other high-lumen setups, I recommend putting it somewhere high up (eg: on a bookshelf)
    • I had a hard time figuring out how to set up corn bulbs or hanging lights
  • Pretty cheap.
  • Generally found that it works for me - I am much more wakeful during the winter months.
Notes
  • High color temperature (5000K+) seems to be important for inhibiting melatonin
  • In practice, I found low CRI unpleasant and 90 CRI was much better. If I were doing this again I might search for even higher CRI bulbs.
  • This setup on the low end of recommended lumens, which can go as high as 100k+. There’s other setups in the reading list you should consider, at the cost of being a little less easy to set up + cohere with your existing furniture.

Reading List

On SAD, light therapy & lighting

David Chapman, You Need More Lux
Lorien Psychiatry, Light Therapy
Richard Korzekwa, Why indoor lighting is hard to get right and how to fix it

Practical setup guides

Ben Kuhn, Your room can be as bright as the outdoors: two setups at ~35k lumens and ~30k lumens
David Chapman, Seriously bright light vs. winter blahs: has instructions about multiple different configurations from ~30k to 100k+ lumens
Eliezer Yudkowsky, How to build your own Lumenator: ~40k lumens per room