Earlier it was believed that blue light causes our sleep disturbance by disturbing our circadian rhythms. Then there was a trend to use blue light filters or night shifts in mobile phones to protect our eyes and get better sleep.
Do you know these filters don’t help you get better sleep, even they worsen the condition? They are doing exactly opposite to their function. If you are using blue light filters on your phone at nighttime to get better sleep, you might make the situation more difficult for you.
What is Blue Light?
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Blue light is part of the light spectrum or electromagnetic spectrum, which has all types of lights. Blue light is a high energy visible light (HEV). It’s wavelength ranges from 380-500nm(nanometers).
Natural blue light comes from the sun, and it is very beneficial in keeping us alert and maintaining our circadian rhythms (our 24-hour cycle).
Artificial blue light is emitted from all daily used digital devices like laptops, computers, smartphones, TV, and LEDs. This artificial blue light from these digital devices disturbs our sleep cycle (circadian rhythm) and damages our eyes.
What are Blue Light Filters?
Blue light filters on the phone are a special function present in almost all smartphones. On the phone, these blue light filters turn the blue light on mobile phone screens into warmer yellow light.
The reason for the inclusion of this function was scientists believed that blue light doesn’t allow our body to produce enough melatonin (Our sleep hormone) due to which we can’t get better sleep.
These blue light filters or night shifts are present in all smartphones. These blue light filters are present in almost all Android mobile phones; there are also blue light filters for iPhones.
Surprisingly, according to very recent studies by some of the scientists show that yellow tint of these blue light filters might be causing more damage than even blue light.
Why are these filters not Good?
A research team led by DR. Tim Brown conducted a study on mice at the University of Manchester. The results of this study were surprisingly unbelievable because they differ totally from earlier studies.
Older studies support that blue light is responsible for disturbing circadian rhythm. University of Manchester scientists exposed mice to both yellow and blue light. They observed that yellow warmer light with the same brightness disturbed their cycle more than blue light.
Dr. Brown told us that light is more towards blue in the evening, which is a signal to our bodies that it’s a time coming to sleep, and in the day it’s yellow warmer light which tells our bodies that it’s no time to sleep.
So, yellow tint on our mobile phones might be causing more damage instead of benefitting us with respect to better sleep.
As this study was not conducted on humans, it was conducted on mice; therefore, this study’s results are not that much believable. Also, this study was not even at the microbiological level.
What should we Do?
There is a massive conflict in earlier scientific studies and modern scientific studies. We don’t know what exactly is disturbing our circadian rhythms or damaging our eyes.
Until science does its work, we should make some lifestyle changes and adopt them strictly to avoid more significant problems. If our sleep is disturbed, we will suffer from depression, laziness, and many other conditions.
What are those lifestyle changes? First, you should try to decrease your screen time. It would help if you decreased your exposure to light from digital devices, no matter it’s blue light or yellow light.
All the light, either blue light or yellow, disturbs us in one way or another. We should try not to use our mobile phones or decrease our mobile phone usage in the evening and nighttime.
Till today, yellow light is not well researched, but blue light is well researched. Even If we accept that blue light is not responsible for our sleep disturbance, we cannot ignore that it is responsible for eyestrain, headaches, depression, and retinal damage.
The final verdict is that you should avoid all types of lights if you are unnecessarily exposing yourself to these. Try to stay more towards natural life and less towards digital life, and you will surely observe a difference. And obviously, try to avoid blue light filters on the phone.
