The Harm of Blue Light & How to Combat It

Modern century technologies and methods of accomplishing daily tasks has moved us away from typical forms of reading paper materials and more towards devices with screens that emit blue lights. The majority of our electronics today consist of LED lights: phones, television, laptops, tablets, etc. And this can directly impact our health, which is why investing in a pair of blue-light glasses can be the best thing you can do in this day and age. 

Some studies have shown that the light reflected from our screens can impact our chronic health as well as our internal clock. Our bodies are naturally trained to have an internal clock that allows us to get tired around bedtime and naturally wake-up when we are suppose to. Blue lights can directly impact this internal clock that we have. It’s estimated that we spend an average of 10 hours a day looking at devices that emit blue light. In moderation, blue light can help moderate our cycles of being awake and asleep, but 10 hours of it is causing a negative effect. 

Spending too much time in front of screens can cause a variety of short and long term health conditions. The radiating blue light actually causes your eyes to strain over time, which can lead to headaches, seeing spots, blurry vision, dry eyes, eye fatigue, redness and more. There is even a condition named after all these symptoms: Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS). over-exposure to blue lights means your eyes have to work extra hard to receive and process the High Energy Visible wavelengths from the light. 

Screen’s blue light can also altar your sleeping pattern. Thus if you have trouble falling asleep, make sure to not stare at any electronic devices at least 30 minutes before you go to bed. As for long-term health effects, the lack of sleep from these screens can inhibit melatonin production. Melatonin is essential to your heart health. Thus a reduction of this can cause an increased risk of obesity, heart disease and other types of cancer. In addition, over time, the overall health of your eyes can decrease. Blue light is directly correlated to cone death in the retina, macular degeneration and sometimes blindness!

Blue light is not the only culprit and cause of our eye strains though. Staring at a screen non-stop for hours on end is in itself a bad practice. Make sure to make a conscious effort to take time to look at something that is not a screen to help relax your eyes. So often we go from looking at our laptops to looking at our phone, which is a bad habit!

Our sun is also known to emit blue light, which is why it’s highly recommended that we wear sunglasses when going outside to protect our eyes. If you are someone who spends a lot of time in front of a screen, you might want to consider investing in a pair of blue light glasses. These glasses are designed to help protect your eyes against these lights. They block the blue light wavelengths. Before, these glasses were super ugly with yellow lenses, but fashion has come a long way and there are so many styles out there. They look like normal glasses and there are a variety of lines to choose from that fits into every budget.

SHOP BLUE LIGHT GLASSES

A million and one thanks for reading – until my next lil’ thought then!

xx jen