BluTech

It is time that we face it; all of us are surrounded by smart screens daily. The pandemic has made avoiding using digital devices even harder. Be it working from home in front of a laptop for a 9-hour shift, video chatting with friends and loved ones, or binge-watching our favorite TV shows for entertainment, digital devices are almost always involved in our work and social activities these days.

The Vision Council researched and found out that almost 80% of American adults tend to use a digital device for more than two hours every day, and nearly 67% of the total population use two devices simultaneously.  

This is why it is not surprising that all this screen time ends up taking a massive toll on our eyes, and some may even feel the effects of digital eye strain more intensively than others. You may even notice signs of insomnia which can affect your day-to-day life as well. Luckily, there are numerous solutions available that can help you mitigate the symptoms of digital eye strain.  

Blue light

After working on the computer for a long day or even after a fun (and socially distant) video game session with online friends, have you ever found your eyes to be dry and tired or experience any blurry vision? These are the primary symptoms of having digital eye strain and are what the Vision Council estimated almost 60% of the country experiences.

According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, even though a significant cause of this irritation might also be a lack of blinking when viewing screens, too much exposure to blue light from digital screens can increase the risk of developing an eye disease. The blue light emitted from digital devices can also throw off your daily sleeping patterns when you are on your laptop or phone after sunset.

Though there is no doubt that long constant exposure to blue light is not profitable for your eyes, digital eye strain is ideally caused by numerous factors that are linked to how we use our digital devices, and blue light is just one.

Will blue-light blocking lenses work?

If you feel like you have been thrown off your sleeping routine, you need to get blue light blockers for insomnia! These blue light glasses are treated to help you by filtering out all blue light effectively and block transmission of various wavelengths emitted from digital screens. If you wish to take it a step further, you can also get these glasses treated to prevent any glare, further reducing the strain on your eyes.  

Finally, blue light blocking lenses can help you feel refreshed even after facing a screen all day. However, if you still experience dry eyes or blurry vision, you must change how you use your digital devices to reduce digital eye strain effectively.  

All humans have a natural sleeping cycle which is known as the circadian rhythm. Light is the primary cue that our bodies use to regulate the circadian rhythm. Blue light tends to suppress the body's production of melatonin, a hormone that has  long been associated with control of the sleep–wake cycle. This means that excessive exposure to blue light after the sun has set can throw your body off and delay your circadian rhythm.  

Since all portable devices shine straight into our eyes and we tend to hold them close to our face, they are much more likely to cause a disrupted body clock. Our body clock is so sensitive that blue light has been noticed to impact the circadian rhythm of individuals who are otherwise entirely blind.  

How does blue light affect us in other ways?

Even though our circadian rhythm is mainly associated with sleep, a recent study shows that it also plays a role in various other regulatory functions in our body. Changing circadian rhythm can end up influencing organ functions and impair thinking. It mostly makes it difficult for you to fall asleep. Some experts have linked circadian disruptions to obesity, depression, diabetes, and even cancer.

Since blue light tends to flicker much more than any other color due to its high energy wavelength, it can cause fatigue and headache amongst people. Blue light blockers for sleep can be the solution.

How do blue light blocking lenses work?  

Most of us use a smartphone or a computer after going to bed at night. Research suggests that almost 90% of Americans use an electronic device in their bedroom for at least one hour before sleeping.

Most of them do not know that almost all of these screens can emit blue light, which can interfere with their natural sleep cycles. Reducing exposure to blue light, particularly during the evening, is a great way to help your body prepare itself naturally to sleep.

What do you mean by blue light?

Light is made up of electromagnetic radiation, which is considered an invisible form of energy. Human eyes tend to interpret different colors of light depending on the total amount of energy that each of them contains. Rainbows tell us the entire spectrum of visible light. Sunlight is a combination of all the different colors of the spectrum.

Blue light is a specific portion of the visible light spectrum that has a unique effect on our hormone production, alertness, and sleep-wake cycles. Blue light is often emitted by fluorescent and LED lights and many other electronic smart devices such as laptops, smartphones, tablets, and more. Overexposure to blue light can even cause migraines.

Mitigating the effects

The easiest and the most effective way you can reduce exposure to blue light in the evening is by turning off all light sources. This means reducing or dimming LED and fluorescent lights and turning off all other electronic devices after the sunsets.

If you have to work on your laptop or computer after dark, you can choose to buy a pair of specialty migraine relief glasses that help reduce the total exposure to blue light. These glasses can help reduce the effects of blue light, allowing you to work for an extended period.

Even though it is environmentally friendly, exposure to blue light can end up affecting your sleep and wake cycles and potentially cause disease. Until we started using artificial lighting, the sun was a vital light source, and people often spent their evenings in relative darkness.

Nevertheless, now most of the planet stays illuminated throughout the evenings, and we take easy access to light pretty much for granted. But the chances are that we already may be paying the price for exposing ourselves to all that light. The blue light emitted from bulbs and smart devices can throw our body’s biological clock (circadian rhythm) out of order at night.

Research also suggests that this may contribute to diabetes, obesity, heart disease, and even cancer.

What do you mean by blue light?

Not all colors have the same type of effect. The blue wavelength, which is proven to be beneficial for us during the day, helps increase our attention, mood, and reaction time. Nevertheless, it seems like exposure to the same blue light after dark can be disruptive.

Our dependency on smart screens and energy-efficient lights has increased our total exposure to blue light wavelength, especially after sunset.

All of us have a slightly different circadian rhythm; the average is 24 and one-quarter hours. The circadian rhythm of individuals who tend to stay up at night is slightly longer. Daylight keeps our internal clock aligned with nature, but blue light can shift the natural flow of this clock, keeping you up at night.

Is blue light exposure bad during nighttime?

Multiple studies suggest a link between exposure to blue light at night and heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. However, we do not have any proof that nighttime exposure to blue light causes these conditions, neither is it clear why the exposure is harmful. There is a strong connection between blue light to sleep, so you must start thinking more about the topic.

Effects of blue light exposure on sleep

Even though all kinds of lights can suppress the secretion of melatonin, blue light tends to do it the best. Professional researchers and their colleagues experimented with comparing the effects of exposure to blue to the green light at the same brightness.

In this excrement, they noticed that blue light was twice as fast at suppressing melatonin as green. Moreover, blue light was better at shifting circadian rhythms as well (3 hours for green light VS 1.5 hours for blue light)

In another study done by researchers from the University of Toronto, experts compared the level of melatonin of individuals exposed to bright indoor light with blue light glasses to people exposed to normal dim light without any glasses.

They noticed that the hormone levels were almost the same in both groups, strengthening the original hypothesis that blue light is a suppressor of melatonin.

Most of us cannot avoid using computers and phones on a daily, but there are several things that you can do if you wish to minimize the negative impact of blue light on your eye health and sleep cycle:

Keep your PC at a reasonable distance:

A widespread mistake we make when working on a computer is sitting too close to it. Ideally, we should always keep our computer screen at least 25 inches away from our eyes (or one arm distance). It would be helpful if you also positioned your screen to look at it slightly downward.

Take intervals

Please take regular breaks using the 20-20-20 rule. This rule suggests that every 20 minutes, you should shift your eyes and look at something that is 20 feet away from you for at least 20 seconds. This will help your eyes to relax.

Using artificial tear

If you feel like your eyes are itchy or dry, you can use artificial tears to refresh your eyes.

Use blue-ray protection lenses.

Using blue-ray protection glasses can help you block any blue light from entering your eyes. Blue light may not just cause damage to your eyes, but it may also disturb your sleep cycle. Ensure you wear these glasses after sunset when working on any digital device.

Don’t look at your phone before sleeping.

It would help if you always tried to avoid looking at your smartphones for at least a few hours before going to bed. Suppose you can also choose to set your phone on night mode if that is not possible.

These tips should help you reduce your digital eye strain and fix irregular sleep cycles. Nevertheless, if you feel like your head hurts after an extended working session, then it would be helpful if you got yourself a pair of migraine glasses.

Blue light is the visible light that is at the blue end of the color spectrum. Although it is not as energetic as the sun's ultraviolet rays, there is still some concern that extreme exposure to blue light may cause much more cellular damage than any other longer wavelengths of visible light that you see.

Moreover, exposure to blue light can also have a significant impact on your daily sleep-wake cycle. Incandescent light and sunlight contain a wide range of wavelengths. Still, the light emitted for several electronic devices and LEDs tends to have a much narrower range of wavelengths.

This increased blue light exposure from cell phones, tablets, LED lights, and computers have raised serious concerns about the effects it may cause on the sleep-wake cycle and our eyes.

How do we process light?

There are three types of cone receptors in our eye's retina, which are keyed to various sections of the visible spectrum. Some cones are more sensitive to green, some to red, and some to blue. The signal coming from these receptors gets further integrated into our brain to help produce our sense of color.

Blue light tends to have to shortest wavelength, which the human eye can detect. The sun also produces blue light and all the other colors of the spectrum, which means that we are exposed to it naturally daily. Nevertheless, exposure to excess blue light may be harmful to your eyes.

Macular degeneration

It is possible that extreme exposure to blue light can lead to retinal damage, similar to what we see in age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Even though we don't have any direct evidence which supports the claim that blue light can cause macular degeneration - there is some epidemiologic evidence that suggests that greater exposure to such blue light can increase the risk of AMD.

The most critical factors for AMD besides blue light exposure are age, family history of the condition, and cigarette smoking. There is some proof that nutritional factors, obesity, and alcohol use may also raise the risk.

Do blue light glasses help?

Blue light protective glasses are designed specifically to filter or block out any blue light emitted from digital device screens. Blocking any extra blue light from entering your eyes can help you prevent eye strain and even improve your daily sleep cycle.

Digital eye strain glasses come coated with a yellow-tinted material which helps in filtering blue light from digital screens. Unlike regular glasses, you do not need any prescription to buy yourself a pair of these blue light glasses.

After the sun goes down, if you tend to use a lot of computers, smartphones, or any other device, then we suggest you put these glasses on. Since blue light also tells our body when it's time to sleep, extreme exposure will end up keeping you awake throughout the night.

What is blue light?

All visible light that we can see contains the entire color spectrum of the rainbow, all the way from red to violet. Within this spectrum are blue light waves that help us stay upbeat and alert.

What gives off blue light?

Any visible light source gives off blue light waves, be it the sun, a light bulb, or even a touchscreen. We are exposed to a lot of blue light from the sun each day, but we remain exposed to it through various artificial sources after sundown.  

How does blue light affect our sleep?

After the sun goes down, the lack of light helps in signaling our bodies to produce melatonin which is a critical hormone responsible for helping us fall asleep. Before artificial light, the sun played a significant role in regulating our sleep cycles. But nowadays, we are exposed to light throughout the day and into the night.  Though any exposure to light waves after dark delays our production of melatonin, exposure to blue light waves can be even more problematic since it will keep us alert.  

So, what does your phone or laptop has to do with this?

Compared to incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, LEDs can give off a lot of blue light. Unfortunately for everyone who likes to cozy up with their tech after the sun sets, LEDs used in countless tablets, smartphones, and televisions can harm your sleep cycle.    

Is blue light harmful?

Blue light is linked to various types of problems ranging from digital eye strain to total loss of sight. However, there is a lot of conflicting evidence about how harmful blue light is.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology says that no evidence suggests that blue light given off by digital screens can cause eye damage, as humans are exposed to it all day from the sun.  

However, research compiled by AOA suggests that prolonged exposure to blue light waves from sitting in front of a screen all day may cause damage to your retina, which is the innermost layer of your eye. The retina is responsible for sending signals to your brain to process everything that you are seeing.  

What are blue light filter glasses?

Blue light filter glasses have a special filter in their lenses that absorbs or blocks blue light and sometimes even UV light from reaching your eyes. This means that if you use such glasses when working on a computer screen (especially after sunset), they can help reduce the overall exposure to blue light waves, which keep you awake.  

Most of these blue blockers you can buy claim to help reduce your eye strain drastically. Most of these blue light blocking glasses are meant to be worn throughout the day if you work in front of a screen and at night to help prevent any blue light waves from keeping us awake.  

We have all been staring at screens our entire life, from our parent’s old Gateway machine to Macintosh desktops, iPad, iPhone, and MacBook today. If you can relate, then you need to know that you are not alone. 

An average office employee spends around 1,700 hours every year in front of a screen. This is just when we are at the office – don’t forget to consider addiction to using smartphones all day long. 

All that prolonged exposure to screens comes with numerous ill effects on our mind and body, such as headaches, eye strain, and insomnia. If you wish to combat these problems without changing your lifestyle, then you can pick up a pair of anti-fatigue blue light glasses. 

Another problem that comes with excessive exposure to blue light is sleeplessness. Nevertheless, these glasses also act as blue light blockers for sleep. These glasses promise everything from eliminating significant eye strain to helping you sleep better. 

What once was hard to find, you can now get plenty of stylish options if you wish to buy a pair of anti-fatigue blue light glasses. You can also purchase blue-light filter lenses for your prescription glasses.  

There is some evidence suggesting that blue light tends to affect when our bodies create melatonin, so if you have a habit of using your phone or laptop after sundown, these glasses may prevent you from staying up later than normal. 

Nevertheless, if you feel like you are dealing with digital eye strain, there is a quick and easy exercise that you can try to help you deal with the situation. You need to start practicing the 20-20-20 rule: this suggests that you need to look at something at least twenty feet away for twenty seconds every twenty minutes.