“this study represents a preliminary attempt to provide insight into the relationship between daytime exposure to light and night-time sleep in young, healthy infants. No intervention or manipulation of light or behavioural routine was attempted …. a relationship was found between light exposure and babies who showed an early propensity for sleep at night and activity during the day. … High levels of light exposure may not be necessary as Waterhouse et al. (1998) reported that even domestic levels of light can influence the human circadian system, and that it is the timing, rather than intensity of light which is of crucial importance. …”

“My Tot Clock

My Tot Clock is the first all-in-one sleep clock, alarm clock, nightlight, timeout timer, and activity timer for tiny tots who can’t yet tell time. The magic of My Tot Clock is that it changes color to teach little ones when it’s time to sleep (blue light) and when it’s okay to wake (yellow light)….”

Got that exactly backwards. I wonder what wavelength of blue they’re using.

hat tip to: http://www.squidoo.com/kids-sleep-clock

(Me, I’ll stay with the $25 dawn simulator I recommended much earlier in the thread)

“Wake Up Light
By Rocky Sand Studio
Mac App Store

Wake Up Light is a special alarm clock for your Mac. It wakes you up with gradually brightening light to help you feel more energized all day. The beautiful sunrise effect is a natural cue for your body to increase the level of cortisone, which is also referred to as the energy hormone.

Wakeup Light simulates sunrise at the speed of your choice, so you can adjust it to suit your personal preference. The light will be at it’s brightest at the alam time you set and a natural alarm sound will start to play at a selected volume….”

“… Tech visionaries have promised us a bright new world where cool and efficient white LEDs, based on blue ones, will replace the wasteful little heaters known as incandescent lightbulbs…. ”
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/optoelectronics/the-leds-dark-secret

(No, to the IEEE, the ‘dark secret’ isn’t that it screws up biological day/night cycles, it’s that it’s not yet cheap enough to use everywhere at high brightness levels.)

mechanisms start to connect how light affects other processes

http://www.sepeap.org/imagenes/secciones/Image/_USER_/5_circadian_mechanisms_in_the_regulation_of_melatonin_synthesis_disruption_with_light_a_%20night_and_the_pathophysiolog.pdf

March 2011 Gooley et al. 96 (3): E463
JCEM Online: Hot Topics in Translational Endocrinology

Exposure to Room Light before Bedtime Suppresses Melatonin Onset and Shortens Melatonin Duration in Humans
http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/96/3/E463.short
Design:In a retrospective analysis, we compared daily melatonin profiles in individuals living in room light (<200 lux) vs. dim light (<3 lux).

Short answer: it depends (quite a bit on how your employer manages lighting — if they’re using dimmer lights in the evening for example. Did you look at that link in the post right before yours?
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/03/12/light-and-dark/#comment-719892

(A reference librarian can find the study for you — it’s paywalled online. And there’s a whole lot out there about shift work generally)

But you might try Google’s search — their “natural language search” tool keeps improving. Here’s your question as a search in ordinary Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=how+does+working+night+shift+affect+ADHD+and+depression

Same, but limited to PsychCentral cite (a very handy tool) the search turns up several topics that are lively and might have an answer for you:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Apsychcentral.com+how+does+working+night+shift+affect+ADHD+and+depression%3F
And for (mostly) science results:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=how+does+working+night+shift+affect+ADHD+and+depression%3F

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_117012.html

By Mary Elizabeth Dallas
Thursday, September 29, 2011
HealthDay news image

THURSDAY, Sept. 29 (HealthDay News) — Working rotating shifts is not as potentially unhealthy as it used to be, according to new Canadian research that suggests modern shift patterns may not carry the same risks for cancer as older, more extreme shift schedules.
… the study’s lead author, Anne Grundy, a doctoral student in the Queen’s University department of community health and epidemiology in Ontario, said in a university news release. “Our study indicates that the now common rotating shift pattern of day-day-night-night may not disrupt circadian rhythm or melatonin production significantly.”

Melatonin, a hormone shown to have anti-carcinogenic qualities, is tied to the light-dark cycle, and melatonin levels typically peak between midnight and 4 a.m. As a result, shift workers who are exposed to light throughout the night may have an increased risk of diseases such as cancer. The study found, however, that recent changes in how shifts are scheduled may help reduce the health risks for these workers. [...]

LSG quit selling them after a while.

Well, if they have a new product that blocks the band that suppresses melatonin, I’ll be delighted. I hope it’s coming soon.

Of course at other times of day you’ll want lamps that _provide_ the critical band so keep you awake — they’re available without the extra glare and risk of the old super-bright-white lights — Sunnex Biotech, http://www.sunnexbiotech.com/ — which I recommended a while back in the thread. I’ve been using theirs (or the Rosco theatrical gels that produce the same result) for the past few years for the wake-me-up-and-set-my-clock hours.

Circadian Phase Delay Induced by Phototherapeutic Devices
Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine, Volume 78, Number 7, July 2007 , pp. 645-652(8)

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/asma/asem/2007/00000078/00000007/art00001;jsessionid=1lquvkvh40oo0.alexandra

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/a-new-use-for-leds-mind-control/

Good news!

http://jap.physiology.org/content/110/3/619.abstract
doi: 10.​1152/​japplphysiol.​01413.​2009
Journal of Applied Physiology
March 2011 vol. 110 no. 3 619-626

Blue light from light-emitting diodes elicits a dose-dependent suppression of melatonin in humans

Kathleen E. West1,
Michael R. Jablonski1,
Benjamin Warfield1,
Kate S. Cecil1,
Mary James1,
Melissa A. Ayers1,
James Maida2,
Charles Bowen2,
David H. Sliney3,
Mark D. Rollag1,
John P. Hanifin1, and
George C. Brainard1

1 Department of Neurology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania;
2 Habitability & Human Factors Branch, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas; and
3 U.S. Army Environmental Hygiene Agency, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Aberdeen, Maryland

Impact of 470-nm (Blue) Light on Acute Melatonin Suppression

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/resources/newsroom/pdf/2010/TopBulb_8511.pdf

“The figure below shows the difference between melatonin levels in the dark and after exposure to the two lowest irradiances. There is no significant difference between melatonin levels after exposure to 0.03 W/m2 and after the dark condition at any time over the course of 90 minutes, suggesting that the threshold for acute melatonin suppression by 470-nm light is between 0.03 W/m2 and 0.09 W/m2. Low levels of short-wavelength light can have the same impact on the circadian system as high levels of “white” light sources.”

—-

By contrast, look through the RPI documents you’ll also find some prepared with funding from an outdoor solid state lighting group “ASSIST”
http://www.google.com/search?q=rpi+lighting+melatonin+ASSIST
Seems to me these papers are spun to cast doubt on any issue and say more research is needed before concluding anything, meanwhile the companies are rushing out LED streetlights.

Remember this, it’s true quite generally:

“Biologically rational decisions may not be politically possible once investment has occurred.” Science v315, 5 Jan. 2007, at 45

— excerpt —
In January in the journal PLoS One, the University of Basel team also compared the effects of incandescent bulbs to fluorescents modified to emit more blue light. Men exposed to the fluorescent lights produced 40 percent less melatonin than when they were exposed to incandescent bulbs, and they reported feeling more awake an hour after the lights went off.

In addition, the quantity of light necessary to affect melatonin may be much smaller than once thought. In research published in March in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, a team at the Harvard Medical School reported that ordinary indoor lighting before bedtime suppressed melatonin in the brain, even delaying production of the hormone for 90 minutes after the lights were off, compared with people exposed to only dim light.

— end excerpt —

No mention of using turtle-safe lights or blue-blocking filters; the article appears to quite ignore what is already known, and to suggest this is all new and uncertain. Hello?

Janet Raloff covered this _years_ ago (links at the top of the main post).