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-   -   Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival by T.S. Wiley (http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=196014)

JenofWi Tue, Jul-06-04 17:29

Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival by T.S. Wiley
 
I saw this book in a post by TwilightZ. I'm only on page 100 but I just love this book. Not only do they say very interesting things that make a great deal of sense BUT they also have a great sense of humor.
I am loving this book. Thanks for mentioning it!

TwilightZ Tue, Jul-06-04 18:53

Quote:
Originally Posted by JenofWi
I saw this book in a post by TwilightZ. I'm only on page 100 but I just love this book. Not only do they say very interesting things that make a great deal of sense BUT they also have a great sense of humor.
I am loving this book. Thanks for mentioning it!



Jen, almost no one talks about this book, so imagine my surprise at seeing this as the topic of a thread. I am delighted that you are enjoying it and maybe your mentioning it will whet the curiosity of others. I also hope your tabula rasa is rapidly filling up with wisdom and truth.

Keep in touch and let me know what you think when you finish it.

Howard

Signey Tue, Jul-06-04 19:27

I appreciate the heads-up about this book. :)
I just ordered it at Amazon.
Thanks!
Signey

MichaelG Wed, Jul-07-04 01:35

Interesting about sugar. It was very rare before the sixteenth century, but wherever colonists went to settle in the tropics, be it Brazil, Phillipines, Carribean, Northern Australia, about the first thing they got going was a sugar cane industry, nearly always hand-in-hand with slavery. All to satisfy a wierd craving for sugar! Last year I went on a guided tour of a sugar mill in North Queensland at Bowen, and the technology that goes into producing the white-and-deadly is mind - boggling.

We actually had slavery here in Australia; ships would go to Pacific Islands and virtually kidnap whole villages and bring them back to Australia, enticing them with very low wages. The trade was called "blackbirding" and their descendents, the "Kanakas" are still here as a distinct community, somewhat like the Cajun people of America.

All to get a plentiful source of sugar... strange world, hey!

Michael Gardner
Australia

PlaneCrazy Wed, Jul-07-04 08:49

In parts of Michigan, sugar beet factorys are common. I rarely smelt anything quite as nasty as a sugar factory. I'm not sure what they do to refine it, but it sure pumps out horrible smells. Not as bad as a rendering plant, I'm sure, but pretty bad for something so sweet.

Plane Crazy

TheCaveman Wed, Jul-07-04 09:04

Woohoo! Favorite book of all time!

PaleoDeano Fri, Jul-09-04 15:24

Just ordered this book. It was hard to find. Grabbed the last copy they had at books4less for under $10.00 for the hardcopy. Can't wait till it arrives. This book sounds very interesting!

penelope Fri, Jul-09-04 15:29

I loved this book.
Thanks for mentioning it and reminding me .
Pene

JenofWi Tue, Jul-27-04 08:06

Well, I finished the book. It was a very interesting read. I got rid of our LED light clock and plan on putting up some dark shades after we move - hopefully soon. I'm not sure what to do this winter. I have not only a husband who works all day and would like to stay awake after getting home - but two kids ages 5 and 7 who might complain about going to bed in the early evening. And I do work one night a week.
I'll do the best we can - like the book said - In the winter, sleep as long as you can without getting fired or divorced.
I really enjoyed the writer's humor!
Thanks for mentioning it.

2bthn1smor Sat, Jul-31-04 08:15

I just bought this book on your recommendations, and boy, is it an eye opener! I'[ve only started reading it and it's already got me thinking that the modern human has 'progressed' too far from his origin, and that maybe we need to regress and go back to our caveman ways. A fascinating book!

cbcb Sat, Jul-31-04 11:27

Quote:
Originally Posted by 2bthn1smor
I just bought this book on your recommendations, and boy, is it an eye opener!


I think that's the polar opposite of the intended effect! :D

2bthn1smor Sat, Jul-31-04 13:14

Well, what I meant to say was that the book really shed some light on the subject, and that it showed flashes of brilliance. In fact, it kept me up all night reading....;-D

daylily Thu, Aug-19-04 11:08

Hello, cave people!

I know this is not the right place to introduce myself, but I was so excited to see a thread to discuss one of my favorite books of all time that I jumped right in and registered and here I am!

While I agree with the authors' main ideas, I have a few nitpicky things about the book that bothered me. For example, here in the temperate zone (I'm in the American midwest), the longest days are centered around the equinox in late June, but most of the fruit is ripe in late summer when the days are starting to shorten. This doesn't negate the main thrust of the book, but I wonder what the rest of you think about this?

Have any of you thought about how these ideas apply to other parts of the world, such as the Arctic, or the tropics?

A disappointment in the book is the fact that the authors did not discuss how they implement the long sleep/darkness times of winter in their own lives. How did their marriages/family relationships/ jobs fare when they started to live this way? Did they start to live this way, or did it remain theory for them?

It is two winters since I read this book. I live with husband and three children, all of whom are night owls. We are homeschoolers and hubby has flextime, so we have had a very late-night/sleep-in kind of schedule for the whole family. It made big waves when I started to go to bed at 9pm!

I must say that they were all very good and supportive, and respected my reasons for doing it, even though they were not convinced to do it themselves. Still, as a mother it seemed wrong to go to bed before my children (2 years ago youngest was 7). As a wife, it seemed unfair to leave dh with all the bedtime routines. Without his support I couldn't have done it at all.

I would love to hear from those of you who are following this way of living. For those just reading the book for the first time, if you are in the Northern Hemisphere you have about a month before time to start turning in early. Are you going to try it? What potential problems/solutions have you already thought about?

That's enough for now! Thanks for letting me jump in on this discussion. It will be a pleasure to get to know you.

Daylily

Monique723 Thu, Aug-19-04 11:48

I would like to get in a discussion on this book also. I am halfway through the book. I have several problems sleeping.

1. I sleep about 6.5 - 7 hours a night. I wake up for some odd reason about either one hour or 1/2 hour before the alarm is to go off at 5:20 am. This usually does not happen on the weekends. On the weekends, I usually sleep 9 hours.

2. I take melatonin to help me sleep, otherwise, I wake more during the night.
I know the book is against taking the supplement.

3. I try to go to bed early, but I have trouble going to bed by 9 pm. I'm in bed around 10 pm.

4. I am having trouble getting all the light out of my bedroom.
We have an alarm system with a lighted panel in our bedroom and I am not sure how to cover it completely. Also, I guess I need to buy drapes or curtains for my bedroom windows as a neighbor has a very bright night light shining across the street.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

daylily Thu, Aug-19-04 12:19

Hi, Monique,

I too have had trouble sleeping more than 7 hours a night. I have menopausal night sweats - that has a lot to do with it. Hard to change.

I never even heard of taking supplemental melatonin before reading this book. If you have a hard time sleeping, no wonder you want to keep taking it. It must seem like things would be really worse without it.

When I started going to bed at 9 pm, a lot of times I would just lie there, wide awake. Somehow, the act of going to bed and turning off the lights caused my brain to wake up. I would eventually fall asleep though, and before the previously usual time. (previously usual?)

It would be a handyman project, but I got a mental picture of a short curtain rod and a little curtain over your alarm system. What do you think?

I need to get new shades. The ones we have really let a lot of light through the edges.

A sort of corollary idea to Lights Out is that we also need lots of natural sunlight, and for those of us visually impaired to take off our glasses/contacts for at least a few minutes so we get the light in our eyes without lenses. Maybe spending more time outdoors is needed for us to really sleep well.

Spending more and more time outdoors has been one of my cave person goals, but I haven't got very far in achieving it. I'm a real softie, used to the creature comforts indoors. Intuitively, I feel that there is a strong connection between our need for real darkness at night and real sun and daylight during the day.

Hope this helps. We have to feel our way through this together.

By the way 2bthn, I'm rolling on the floor.

Daylily


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