There are two easy ways to fine-tune your own exposure to blue light, one with settings on your devices and the other with glasses or glass lenses that filter out the lower frequencies so you can enjoy this eye health feature even while out biking or driving home from work. The shorter wavelength of blue light also means it can easily penetrate our eyes there are concerns about the long-term risk that exposure to this type of light might have on our eyes too.įortunately, we live in an era where blue-light awareness is increasing. Conclusion: Don’t use your devices for at least an hour prior to your bedtime.īut blue light has all sorts of strange and interesting effects on our eyesight and eye health. One obvious consequence of this is that the more you are in brightly lit rooms and stare at glowing screens at night, the harder it is for you to get to sleep and enjoy a restful night. Surprisingly perhaps, our brains still work with these light and color cues, with cool blue “daytime” frequencies causing our brains to spin up and be ready for the day, while the absence of blue, the shift to a warmer color palette, slows down our brains, caused the production of a hormone called melatonin, and lets us comfortably drift off to sleep. But it’s not just overall illumination, it’s actually the frequencies of light that change, with the bright blues of the daytime sky versus the warmer yellows and oranges of the communal fire.
Time to hunt! As the light dims and it becomes night, your brain gets the opposite signal: Time to sleep. When it becomes bright outside your brain kicks into gear and wakes up your body. Imagine you live in a cave and your body cycles are completely regulated by the seasons.