The Benefits of Blue Light Glasses

According to Data Reportal, the average Brit spends around 6 hours and 25 minutes looking at screens each day. This includes phones, tablets, televisions and computers that emit blue light. In this blog, we’ll discuss what blue light is and the benefits of wearing blue light glasses to protect your eyes.

What Is Blue Light?

Blue light is a colour in the visible light spectrum that can be seen by human eyes. It’s the part of the natural electromagnetic energy spectrum that contains the highest amounts of energy because it is a short wavelength. It vibrates within the 380 to 500-nanometer range. Roughly one-third of all visible light is “blue” light and is considered high-energy visible.

While sunlight is the most significant source of blue light, there are also artificial sources of blue light in our daily lives that impact our eyes as well. These sources include fluorescent light, LEDs, flat-screen LED television, computer monitors, smartphones and tablets.

Blue light helps to boost your alertness, memory and cognitive function. We need blue light in our lives because it allows us to regulate our circadian rhythm as well as our body’s natural wake and sleep cycles. For this reason, the natural blue light that we get from the sun is essential to our growth and development.

Unfortunately, blue light exposure can also be unhealthy. The eyes aren’t good at blocking blue light, and nearly all visible blue light passes through the cornea and lens at the front of the eye before it reaches the retina. Here, the cells convert the light so the brain can process it into images. With that, continued exposure to blue light can damage retinal cells and cause vision problems, including age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, eye cancer, growths on the eye, etc.

Furthermore, because blue light helps regulate our circadian rhythm and natural wake cycles, exposure to blue light before bedtime can disrupt sleep patterns and impact the melatonin production that helps you sleep.

And on top of this all, people tend to blink less often when using digital devices. This contributes to dry eye and eye strain. Common symptoms of dry eye and eye strain include headaches, blurred vision and neck and shoulder pain. If you find that you’re experiencing those signs, then it may be time to invest in some blue light glasses.

Nomad Eyewear's Blue Light "Crystal Crush" Glasses

What Are Blue Light Glasses?

Blue light glasses help protect your eyes from the overexposure caused by blue light. It’s estimated that commercially available blue light glasses can reduce negative effects by roughly 10 to 23 percent without reducing the quality. As a result, you’ll prevent the eye strain and dry eye that causes a whole host of other symptoms. For many people, this results in them being able to fall asleep and stay asleep faster if they use screens that emit blue light right up until the time they go to sleep.

Blue light glasses may be helpful for you if you spend several hours per day on digital devices or have started to notice digital eye drain.

1. Get better sleep

You may be thinking, “Does using my phone or watching TV right really impact my ability to go to bed? I do it all the time, and I always manage to fall asleep!”

And that may be true. You may eventually drift off but consider how walking outside into the sunlight would help to wake you up. Sunlight is exposure to blue light just like a TV, tablet, or phone screen. Both make you feel alert, and the short wavelengths delay the release of melatonin, which is a sleep-inducing hormone. Your body naturally reduced melatonin a couple of hours before your typical bedtime, and when you use your phone or computer, you disrupt its release.

When you make a conscious effort to stay off screens or use blue light glasses, you may see an improvement in how quickly you fall asleep and how well you stay asleep.

Nomad Eyewear's Blue Light "Hustle" Glasses

2. Reduce your headaches

Do you find that you get headaches or migraines at the end of a long day of work at your computer? Invest in a pair of blue light glasses! Blocking the blue light that comes with screen time can help reduce the frequency of migraines and mitigate headache pain when you do experience them.

3. Ease your eye strain

In small doses, blue light doesn’t present issues for most people. As noted above, it has positive qualities like the ability to boost your alertness, memory and cognitive function. However, in large amounts, blue light makes it difficult for the eye to concentrate and focus on the screen. As a result, using computer glasses allows you to increase the contrast on the screen and makes it easier to use the device without experiencing muscle and eye strain.

For many people working remotely, this is a must-have in their daily lives. Companies have shifted countless meetings and tasks to an online format to encourage social distancing during the pandemic. However, this has also drastically increased screen time. If you want to protect your eyes while working, blue light glasses are the perfect way to do so.

4. Reduce the risk of eye disease

Your cornea and lens work hard to block harmful UV light from reaching your retina. Unfortunately, however, they can’t block blue light, and thus your retina can become damaged through excessive screen time. You may see this in the form of macular degeneration or cataracts.

We suggest using blue lights glasses to help prevent any potential vision issues or risk of eye disease.

Final Thoughts

Do you work on a computer all day long? Are you experiencing blurred vision, headaches and shoulder and neck pain? Do you want to protect yourself from dry eyes and eye strain?

Blue light glasses may be able to help! Visit Nomad Eyewear to browsing for a pair of computer glasses that can change the way you feel at the end of the day and help you get better sleep.