In today’s modern society, the prevalence of sleep disturbances is a well-known concern, often linked to the excessive use of electronic devices emitting bright lights during nighttime hours. Essentially, using your phone or laptop in bed can hinder your ability to fall asleep and negatively impact the quality of your sleep.
Discover the negative effects of blue light on your sleep and find out effective strategies to reduce its impact and enhance the quality of your sleep.
The impact of blue light on sleep quality
The visible spectrum is the range of wavelengths that our eyes can perceive as light. The image below illustrates the different wavelengths of light in this spectrum, including ultra-violet light below the spectrum and infra-red light above it.
Research has shown that the presence of blue light in the 450–470 nm range can have a detrimental effect on the quality of sleep. This is because it acts as a signal that suppresses the production of melatonin. Because melatonin is a hormone that the body naturally produces to help with sleep, its suppression can throw off your internal biological clock and disrupt your circadian rhythm. This can make it difficult for you to fall asleep, even if you would like to rest.
It’s worth noting that light with a shorter wavelength tends to have a stronger impact on suppressing melatonin production. This is why blue light, which falls into the shorter wavelength range, is particularly disruptive. On the other hand, red light, with its longer wavelength in the visible light spectrum, has the least impact on your sleep patterns.
Reducing the impact of screen-emitted blue light
Screens emit a lot of blue light, so it’s simple and won’t take much work on your part to reduce it. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this: adjusting the settings on your devices, if they have that capability, or utilizing an app designed to block blue light.
It’s a simple task that can greatly enhance your sleep quality by reducing the amount of blue light you’re exposed to during late hours. Furthermore, another advantage of reducing blue light from your screens is the potential reduction in eye strain, especially when using screens in low-light settings.
Minimizing the amount of blue-light exposure from various sources
Aside from screens, blue light is also emitted by other sources, such as fluorescent light bulbs and LED lights. Regrettably, an app cannot easily filter the light that these sources emit. Fortunately, there are ways to lessen the impact of the blue light that these sources emit:
- Consider replacing these lights whenever feasible.
- Consider using a cover that reduces the brightness of these lights or filters them to emit a reddish hue (e.g., red cellophane).
- Minimize your exposure to bright lights before going to bed.
The last two points are generally applicable, regardless of the light source being used (such as incandescent light bulbs). In order to optimize your sleep quality, it is advisable to minimize exposure to light as you approach bedtime. If you find yourself needing to be exposed to light before bedtime, it’s best to dim it as much as possible and use a red-colored cover to filter out the blue light it emits.
Summary and Conclusions
- Being exposed to light before going to bed can make it harder for you to fall asleep and can also lower the quality of your sleep.
- Typically, light with a shorter wavelength, such as blue light, tends to have a greater impact on your sleep compared to light with a longer wavelength, like red light.
- Blue light can have a negative impact on your sleep quality by disrupting your body’s natural sleep patterns. It does this by reducing the production of melatonin, an important hormone for regulating sleep.
- One effective method to minimize the impact of blue light on your sleep is to utilize apps or settings that can filter it out from the screens of your electronic devices.
- Additionally, you can reduce your exposure to blue light from other sources like LED lights and fluorescent light bulbs. This can be done by replacing them, refraining from using them before bedtime, or covering them with a material that filters out most of the blue light and only allows dim, reddish light to pass through.
