For the last couple of weeks, I’ve seen blue-light glasses everywhere. A ton of my friends have them, and I’ve seen them advertised on almost every social media platform. So, I decided to do some research about what blue light is, and see if the glasses are just a new popular trend that doesn’t work, or if they actually help.
According to Harvard Health, looking at screens for long hours of the day causes eye strain and dry eyes. The blue light emitted from screens disrupt people’s natural circadian rhythm and their melatonin production – two things that heavily influence sleep. Your circadian rhythm is the natural sleep and wake cycle that regulates when you go to bed and wake up, and melatonin is a hormone that is secreted in response to darkness and is linked to the regulation of your circadian rhythm. Having a longer circadian rhythm (aka going to sleep later at night) can put people at risk for higher rates of depression, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Overall, blue light is only good during the day, as it causes alertness, which is good for keeping sleep-deprived college students awake at their 8 am lecture.
I often stay up until 3 am just scrolling through social media, unable to sleep. Most of the time I credit my awful sleep schedule to my Dunkin’ Donuts addiction, but the emergence of blue-light glasses made me rethink my night-owl habits. I went to Amazon and found a pair of blue-light blocking glasses by TIJN that only cost $16. The Amazon page said that the glasses would minimize headaches, improve sleep, prevent harmful UV rays, provide anti-eye fatigue, and would have low color distortion. I hoped that buying a pair of these glasses would prevent headaches that I got from staring at a computer screen all day, and would help me fall asleep before 3 am.
The style that I got was surprisingly cute, and these glasses come in a bunch of other styles if squared frames aren’t your thing. I wore the glasses while working on homework or taking notes for long periods of time, made sure to wear them at night, and after a day or two of wearing them, I completely stopped noticing that they were even on. Almost immediately I noticed a difference. I haven’t had a computer-related headache in weeks, and I’ve been falling asleep much earlier at night. The past couple of nights, I’ve been asleep before midnight, which is unheard of for me. I wake up earlier in the day naturally, instead of being dragged out of bed by my alarm, I feel more well-rested and have ultimately been more productive.
Placebo effect or not, these glasses have definitely made a huge difference. Whether you choose to invest in a pair, or just switch your settings to a night shift, preventing the amount of blue light that you’re taking in (especially at night) definitely helps prevent headaches and regulates sleep cycles. Avoiding headaches and getting plenty of sleep will definitely come in handy come finals season. Happy studying!
Harvard Health article: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side
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