Tuesday, May 02, 2006
The Effect of Extended Daylight
The days are getting really long in Lund. According to Weather Underground, there is 16h 53min (2 May 2006) of visible light and the length of day is getting longer by about 4min everyday. I haven't seen the longest of day, yet. As the land of the mid-night sun, Sweden will experience very long day in June. In Stockholm, for example, sunrise will be at 0330 and sunset at 2200. And the further north of Sweden we go, like Kiruna, the daylight will be even longer: midnight sun phenomenon. I want to say something about how this extended daylight has affected me: my habits and mood.
Sleeping pattern is hit hard, I think, by the extended visible light. It starts to get dark only around 9pm now and the illusion is that it's like past 7pm. I will continue to work till about 2-3 am only to realise how late the night is. The opposite happens for waking up. Pretty strong sun light shines into my room at about 6am and I have the feeling that I will be late for class; I wake up only to find I can have another 1.5h of sleep. My sleep is disrupted a little at this point and my energy level is relatively low in the day. I'm sure you all can understand how difficult it is to pull through 4 hours of early lectures (8am-12pm).
Eating time is another part of the life style that has been affected. Breakfast and lunch are still normal; dinner is pushed very late. In Singapore, we eat, say like, 6-8 pm? And I can say that our hunger is controlled by light, well, at least mine is. So when the sun goes down, I will head to PGP canteen or, if at home, go to the hawker centre for a meal. But in Lund now, I sometimes eat as late as 9-10 pm (which is just an hour or so past daylight). And it's interesting to note that during winter, I wouldn't find my Swedish neighbors in the kitchen after 9pm (they have an early dinner habit); but in spring, it's common to see people in the kitchen at 8, 9 and even 10pm. When I eat late, I will tend to also sleep late and the whole bad sleeping pattern cycle repeats...
The limited length of time which I see sunlight affects my mood. Although sleeping and eating are affected adversely, I think my mood has improved during spring due to extended daylight! I especially like the still-bright sky after lab sessions, which ends at 4pm. In Singapore, it would have been dark or close to darkness if we have late classes. I hate the feeling of leaving home in the dark and going home in the dark; it's so depressing. In Lund winter, sunset would be at 4pm or so, just as bad.
Like Alec and Weihao said yesterday," Now, the daylight period is deceiving us about the concept of time". I agree totally. Lastly, the extended day explains why I have the mood to type my blog and eat Häagen-Daiz ice-cream @ my desk even though it's 10pm now - I think I have freaking a lot of time for study before bed-time (which is not true!).
P.S. Exactly 1 month to the end of term (2 June).
Sleeping pattern is hit hard, I think, by the extended visible light. It starts to get dark only around 9pm now and the illusion is that it's like past 7pm. I will continue to work till about 2-3 am only to realise how late the night is. The opposite happens for waking up. Pretty strong sun light shines into my room at about 6am and I have the feeling that I will be late for class; I wake up only to find I can have another 1.5h of sleep. My sleep is disrupted a little at this point and my energy level is relatively low in the day. I'm sure you all can understand how difficult it is to pull through 4 hours of early lectures (8am-12pm).
Eating time is another part of the life style that has been affected. Breakfast and lunch are still normal; dinner is pushed very late. In Singapore, we eat, say like, 6-8 pm? And I can say that our hunger is controlled by light, well, at least mine is. So when the sun goes down, I will head to PGP canteen or, if at home, go to the hawker centre for a meal. But in Lund now, I sometimes eat as late as 9-10 pm (which is just an hour or so past daylight). And it's interesting to note that during winter, I wouldn't find my Swedish neighbors in the kitchen after 9pm (they have an early dinner habit); but in spring, it's common to see people in the kitchen at 8, 9 and even 10pm. When I eat late, I will tend to also sleep late and the whole bad sleeping pattern cycle repeats...
The limited length of time which I see sunlight affects my mood. Although sleeping and eating are affected adversely, I think my mood has improved during spring due to extended daylight! I especially like the still-bright sky after lab sessions, which ends at 4pm. In Singapore, it would have been dark or close to darkness if we have late classes. I hate the feeling of leaving home in the dark and going home in the dark; it's so depressing. In Lund winter, sunset would be at 4pm or so, just as bad.
Like Alec and Weihao said yesterday," Now, the daylight period is deceiving us about the concept of time". I agree totally. Lastly, the extended day explains why I have the mood to type my blog and eat Häagen-Daiz ice-cream @ my desk even though it's 10pm now - I think I have freaking a lot of time for study before bed-time (which is not true!).
P.S. Exactly 1 month to the end of term (2 June).
# posted by William : 9:24 PM
