5 ways to minimise harmful blue light in your life

Blue light (425-495nm) is potentially harmful to humans, inhibiting energy production in our cells, and is especially harmful to our eyes.

shades of blue
Don’t look at this image for long!

This can manifest in the eyes over time as poor general vision, especially nightime or low brightness vision.

In fact, blue light is well established in the scientific literature as a leading contributor to age-related macular degeneration.

Sailors throughout modern history are well known to have a higher rate of cataracts due to glittering sunlight being reflected on the oceans.

 

 

Sources of blue light

This harmful light comes from any source of direct blue or wider spectrum white light, including:

  • midday sun
  • smartphone screens
  • tv screens
  • street lighting
  • car lights
  • household technology
  • and more

 

How to prevent blue light damage

Fortunately there are several easy lifestyle changes you can make to minimise and even reverse blue light damage.

  1. F.lux – https://justgetflux.com/
    • Free software for Windows, Mac, iOS (Android CyanogenMod users have LiveDisplay)
    • Significantly reduces blue light output from your screens at night, giving a warm orange tint.
  2. Blue light blocking glasses
    • Orange tinted glasses that absorb any blue light, allowing the rest through.
      man wearing blue light blocking glasses
      “These glasses are great!”
    • Fully protects the eyes in areas of bright light such as grow rooms or during acne light therapy
  3. Red OS themes
    • Windows/Mac background colours can be changed to a solid red
    • Red Google Chrome theme
    • Android/iOS backgrounds can also be set to solid red
    • Android/iOS keyboard themes can usually be changed to redred swiftkey keyboard theme android
  4. Red household items
    • Such as curtains, duvets, walls and even the clothes you wear may give a slightly healthier environment to live in, especially for people with eye problems.
  5. Red LED lights
    • Finally, the most effective way to neutralise any damage from blue light is to counter with high powered red lights such as below:
-17%
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4 thoughts on “5 ways to minimise harmful blue light in your life

  1. Myles Moriarty says:

    I always wondered what you looked like, Joe! (It is you, isn’t it?)

    Just working my way through all the comments in your old blogs – very worthwhile. Any new blogs coming up?

    Are you following the photobiomodulation Facebook page?

    • Joe says:

      Not me unfortunately!
      There is a new blog post coming up about red light for eyesight.
      I am indeed following that page.

    • Joe says:

      What about studies that have shown X-rays help to reduce acne?
      What about studies that have shown starvation helps to reduce acne?
      There’s various things you can do that will reduce acne by sterilising or reducing sebum production and so on. The question is just whether those short term benefits to reduced acne are worth to long term potential harms.
      We’d all agree that using x-rays on your face to reduce acne is a bad idea – it works for that, but it a bad idea because of long term damage/risks. I would say that blue light treatment is the same sort of thing. In fact, blue light is aging your skin and weakening it. You’re trading acne for looking older. The skin is also harmed in the process and the acne is more likely to return in the long term anyway. It’s a very shortsighted and uneducated approach to acne treatment, just as X-rays were when they were used for acne in the past.

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