Bio Hacking: Blue Light and Sleep

We've all heard that blue light in the evenings is bad for our sleep. It messes with your circadian rhythms and means that your sleep quality is poor, so you don't feel refreshed, even after a good 8 hours in bed.

In fact, studies have shown that you should switch off your screens at least four hours before you intend to go to bed. That's fine (if a little annoying) if you work in a 9-5 job and can be finished before 6pm and don't go to bed until 10pm, but what if you need to work in the evenings?

Entrepreneurs frequently end up working late into the night, especially those of us with children who are at home during the day! Snatching a few hours to work in the evenings whilst the children sleep might be the only way you can keep your business running.

You can purchase blue light filter glasses which are pretty good at filtering light, so if you can pull off the rock star look, you should definitely go for it! They're not expensive, if you get the yellow/brown coloured lenses, but people may query why you're wearing glasses at night. You can also get clear lenses, but they aren't as effective (and they're a lot more expensive).

If you need prescription glasses, you can get a blue light filter added to your lens at your opticians, but again, it's still not as effective as the yellow lenses.

Not a fan of wearing glasses?

You should download F.lux

F.lux is free software that you can download on PC or Mac that keeps track of sunrise/sunset based on your location and automatically changes your screen colours to ensure that you aren't exposed to blue light spectrum in the evenings when you should be winding down for sleep. F.lux leaves your screen at 6400k during daylight hours, then gradually lowers it to 1900k across an hour at sunset. If you've ever experienced this, you'll be amazed at how it suddenly feels a lot later than it is. Listen to your body and go to sleep. The only reason you were working late before was blue light interrupting your melatonin production. Hopefully you'll wake up early and get some work done before breakfast instead.

Here are some of F.lux's other options that I love:

• Fast transitions: 20 second fade at sunrise and sunset.

• Sleep in on weekends: you can choose brighter light later on Friday and Saturday nights (useful if you want a lie in on Saturday and Sunday)

• Extra hour of sleep (ages 13-18): Starts Bedtime mode an hour earlier for people who need a little more sleep

• Expanded daytime settings: Warmer daytime settings to reduce eyestrain.

• Backwards alarm clock: Calculates how many hours until your desired wake up time and give you a reminder every thirty minutes if you've passed the recommended bedtime

Colour Effects

• Darkroom: Removes 100% of blue and green light and inverts colors. Darkroom mode also preserves night vision while using a screen.

• Movie mode: Lasts 2.5 hours. Preserves colors and shadow detail for watching movies with reduced alerting light.

• OS X Dark theme at sunset: Uses the normal theme during the day and switches to dark theme (dock and menu bar) each night at sunset. Disabling f.lux will also disable dark theme.

Change your lightbulbs

Putting a red light bulb in might have health benefits in the bedroom, but it can also give your neighbours the wrong message. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have different lighting for different times of day though.

We have daylight bulbs (6400k) in our overhead lights that we turn on in the morning. In the evening we have lots of lamps with yellow/warmest white bulbs (I aim for about 2000k) in them that we can turn on. I also like to use pillar candles. Candle light and warm white light after sunset helps to prevent switching off your melatonin production and improves your sleep.

Children and Screens

It's a sad fact that if your children have been at school, they might only be using their devices and watching TV etc... later in the day and evening. Installing f.lux or night mode settings on their computer/devices will help, but what if they just want to watch television?

Honestly, my ideal is to switch screens off in the evenings. Apart from special occasions, the rule in my house is that the children are not allowed screens after lunch time. We've seen a great improvement in sleep since implementing this rule. If possible I advise you to enrol your child in an evening activity that prevents them sitting in front of a screen all evening. They might be mentally tired, but they've been sitting pretty much all day. Getting active in a martial arts club, dance school, gymnastics or other physical activity will have benefits reaching far beyond limiting screen time.

If you can't do that, then encourage your children to wear blue light filter glasses whenever the television goes on. Good sleep at night will allow them to function better in class tomorrow.