The public freakout about blue light started with a study in 2014. Half of the 12 participants read on an iPad before bed. The rest read physical books. The iPad users took longer to fall asleep, felt groggier the next day and produced less melatonin. The researchers said the culprit was the glow emitted from the iPad’s LED screen, which produces a disproportionate amount of light in the upper, bluer end of the spectrum. Under specific circumstances, blue-enriched light disrupts the daily circadian rhythm – our body’s natural pacemaker – that uses daylight to help determine when we start to feel tired. Subsequent research seemed to support the findings. Sounds simple, right? It’s not.
“This was an incredibly deceptive piece of work,” says Jamie Zeitzer, a professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University, who studies the effect of light on the circadian system. The science wasn’t bad, he says, the problem is it brought people to bad conclusions.
After years warnings and millions of people flipping on the blue light filters built into their phones, the latest science suggests screens are not the main culprit here after all. For example, a recent review of 11 different studies and found that the light from screens only delayed sleep by about nine minutes, at worst. Not zero, but not life altering, either.
The amount of blue light emitted by the screens of phones, laptops and tablets has also been shown to be tiny compared to the blue light we receive from the Sun – 24 hours-worth of blue light from digital devices totted up to less than one minute spent outdoors, according to one study. Other studies have shown it’s not enough to affect levels of the hormones that control our sleep.
So why am I so tired all the time? Zeitzer and others told me there are lots of other ways that light, blue and otherwise, could be ruining my bedtime. If I really wanted to tackle the blue monster, it was going to take a serious lifestyle change.
I have a wild theory that humans needs the full spectrum of natural sunlight nearly every day for at least an hour or so. It’s known already that is creates vitamin D. I think other unknown effects happen and that the screens people stare at are not providing the same spectrum, resulting in a lack of wavelengths that we need to stay healthy.
Newton and Tesla both have anecdotal stories about staring at the sun (or it’s reflection) and being inspired by it as well. There are others as well.
It’s a crazy idea, I know, but what if, under certain rare circumstances, viewing the sun unlocks certain mental capabilities and enhances the mind or body of the person who experiences it in unexpected ways?
I’m not saying anyone should stare at the sun obviously, I simply think there’s so much more to light than we understand and that limiting wavelengths, in my opinion, will only prevent such an occurance, if it were something that actually existed.