How Does Blue Light Affect Your Eyes?

We’re an affiliate
We hope you love the products we recommend! Just so you know, we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. Thank you if you use our links, we really appreciate it!

Check out the latest price of Blue Light Blocking Glasses on Amazon

Did you know that the sun is the primary source of blue light emission? While basing ourselves in the golden rays, we care about our skin and slather sunscreen everywhere on our bodies, but the part of our body we usually neglect is our eyes.

The blue light emitting from the sun can be a significant hazard to our eyes. With the increasing adaptation to the new technology, we have added many aggressors to the list. There are many other sources, too, like smartphones, laptops, and other digital devices that give off blue light, which can be responsible for eye damages.

In this article, we will have an overview of how does the blue light and its excessive exposure is harmful to our eyes.

Table of Contents

What is blue light?

Blue light is high energy light of visible light spectrum, which falls between the frequencies of 400-450nm. These high energy lights, when reaches our retina, can adversely affect our eyes.

According to Eminence Organics International Trainer Brian Goodwin, we approximately are exposed to blue light six hours per day between our cellphones and our computer screens.

How does blue light cause damage to our eyes?

Hillary is an accountant; her job requires working on computers and laptops for a long time. This continuous exposure of blue lights has caused her eye strain and eye dryness. But why did this happen?

Our eyes can filter out many wavelengths of lights like UV to prevent its damage. However, our eyes are not much efficient in protecting blue lights.

Overexposure of blue light from our ever-present cell phones and computers can cause us day time fatigue and disrupt our natural sleep and wake cycle. In addition to these health impacts, blue lights are incredibly damaging to our eyes.

Although not much of the researched evidence is present to evaluate how much blue light can damage our eyes, there are many theories and researches as to how this blue light causes damage.

Digital eye strain

We continuously expose our eyes to blue lights by using smartphones and other digital devices for prolonged hours. The blue light emitted from these devices can decrease contrast and can lead to eye strain.

The symptoms of eye strain include dry eyes, pain in the cornea, blurred vision, and dull headache.

Retinal damage

According to the research of the University of Toledo, when blue light hits a retina molecule called retinal, it triggers a series of chemical reactions that can be damaging to the retina cells in our eyes.

Macular degeneration

Although much intense research is required to prove this point, some primitive research shows that blue light can pass through the retina and cause macular damage. This macular damage can lead to vision loss also.

How to counteract the effects of blue lights on our eyes?

As we came to know about the effects of visible light on our eyes, we are also learning how to mitigate so that we can keep our eyes healthy.

Limit screen time

The advent of smartphones has given us all a new hobby, yes, scrolling and surfing the internet and social media sites endlessly. Apart from wasting our time, this mindless scrolling can be extremely damaging to our eyes.

This is extremely important to teens and kids who are at higher risk of eye damage. Taking a break from digital devices is essential every once in a while.

Screen filters

Many screen filters are available that are applied easily to the screens of digital devices. These filters buffer the blue light emitting from the screens before falling into our eyes.

Anti-reflective lenses

These reflective lenses are designed specially to boost the contrast and minimize the glares of blue lights emitted either from the sun or our digital devices.

Blue light blocking glasses

Blue light blocking glasses are the trend these days. From celebrities to ordinary people, everyone seems to sport these glasses days. However, these glasses play a much more significant role than make us look stylish.

These blue light blocking glasses filter our blue lights coming from the sun or our smartphones before reaching our eyes and thus protect our eyes from getting damaged.

Eye drops

Eye dryness is one of the symptoms of eye strain caused by blue lights. There are special eye drops available to counteract this dryness of eyes.

These eye drops are essentials for the ones that have to work on their screens for a prolonged period.

https://www.icarefamilyvision.com/blog/2017/12/16/is-blue-light-harmful-to-our-eyes