(10 minute read)
The best blue light glasses for sleep. In this article, you will learn what to look for when buying a pair of blue light blocking glasses for sleep. You will get a quick insight into how blue light can affect your sleep and why blue light blocking glasses is a great tool.
Why block blue light for better sleep?
In our modern age, Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) have taken a natural part in our daily life. LEDs are now used in most of our digital devices such as TVs, smartphones, computers, tablets and in many modern light sources. We take for granted being able to always stay connected and get information quickly. This bright new future is just that—a little extra bright on demand, 24/7. Convenience comes with a price because of the risk of daily overexposure to blue light, also called high energy visible (HEV) light.
Large amounts of light flooding into our eyes are natural when the light contains similar quantities of all colors, like sunlight. This type of full-spectrum light includes blue light, essential for the body’s circadian rhythm, which is important for daytime alertness and mood. The main issue today is artificial LED light hitting our retinas. This type of light contains an extra high amount of blue light, decreasing our natural melatonin levels. Melatonin, the sleep hormone, has an essential role in controlling our sleep and wake cycles. This is done via specialized photoreceptors in the eyes constructed to react to blue light. The LED blue light spike is close to the wavelengths for which these photoreceptors are the most sensitive.
Problems quickly occur when this mechanism is overloaded through continuous blue light exposure late at night. Instead of winding down, the body keeps melatonin levels down as it adapts to the signal to stay awake and alert. The obvious solution would be to remove all blue light–emitting light sources at night. This means not using digital devices like smartphones or watching TV. As most of us want to stay updated without limiting our screen time, this would be too restrictive for our daily lifestyles.
Blue light glasses for better sleep
To make it easy to be consistent and ensure a limitation of blue junk light, blue light blocking glasses have become a valuable tool. This tool is particularly useful for maintaining good sleep quality because it can be carried anywhere and be used on-demand, whether you need it on the go or at home. We at THL SLEEP are the market leaders in blue light blocking glasses for sleep improvement. We have just released our second-generation blue light blocking glasses lenses custom-made for sleep improvement. Our science-based approach, with the most accurate protection, gives you the best quality and performance. The lenses filter out 99.5% of all blue light and more than 70% of green light, making them a good natural sleep aid. You can find our premium line of glasses here: Blue Light Blocking Glasses for Better Sleep.
We are happy that so many of our customers get great benefits when using our glasses. They are reporting better sleep and finding it easier to fall asleep. With our company mission to reach out to as many as possible about the benefits of filtering out blue light, here are some more facts.
How to get the best performance for sleep?
When you are selecting a pair of blue light blocking glasses, you should start focusing on the lenses. The quality and development of the lens are critical for a product that works for sleep improvement and gives you maximal clarity. There is a core reason that our advanced lenses come in a dark amber/orange color. This is connected to how effective the lenses are at filtering out blue light. Yellow or clear lenses are not sufficient, as they fail to block out the blue light that affects your sleep the most (460–480 nm). To test this, we put clear lenses through our lens tester and could see that this type of lens filters out a maximum of 30% of all blue light.
This should be compared to our custom-made lenses that block out 99.5% of all blue light and a large amount of the green light spectrum, optimal for sleep improvement. Being the market leader in filtering out HEV light, we have balanced our lenses to let in maximal amounts of safe light for clear and relaxed vision.
A whopping 50% of all light is let through the lenses. They block 100% of UVA and UVB light, filtering these harmful UV wavelengths according to UV400. The lenses also come with anti-glare and anti-reflective coatings to further reduce eye strain.
The importance of avoiding red lenses
Some dark red lenses are marketed as better than orange lenses in the case of sleep improvement. The available studies show that the relative sensitivity for light in relation to sleep peaks at around 460 nm. Take a look at the graph below to see a visualization of the disruptive zone shown in yellow. Red lenses in computer glasses are meant to block more green light. This will theoretically offer better performance for sleep. When taking visibility and clarity into consideration, the issue becomes how you will see and feel when using the glasses. In the hunt to block out 100% of green light, anti-eye strain and clarity were forgotten. The payoff becomes widely-interfered overall visibility with negligible improvements in performance, blocking out a large amount of safe light in the yellow, orange, and red spectrum. Studies have demonstrated that these long wavelengths have minimal impact on sleep and the circadian rhythm.
How to choose a pair of computer glasses that will last
Now let’s get into what is essential to have in mind when choosing the right pair of frames. Our frames are comfortable, lightweight, and easy to wear, so you can forget they are there. They are made of high-end acetate, a hypoallergenic, reshapeable, and environmentally-friendly material. Well-known premium brands commonly use this expensive, labor-intensive material. When you pick up a pair, make sure that the frame is made of acetate, as this will ensure you can use the glasses for years to come. Most of the options out there are made of cheap frames of injection molded plastics. These frames can contain harmful chemicals and tend to break or wear out quickly. Our frames come with a 24-month warranty for any manufacturing defects, so you can feel confident about getting the best quality. Each batch goes through industry-standard quality controls to ensure market-leading quality for every pair sold.
When to use blue blocker computer glasses for the best results?
Everyone has their unique daily habits. Some have a desk job; others work the night shift under strong fluorescent light bulbs. All of us experience some kind of artificial blue light exposure that corresponds to a potential health risk. After-work entertainment or gaming results in the average American having 10 hours of active screen time per day. Modern habits require modern measures to handle this hidden threat to our overall health and well-being.
As for the history of humanity, things were quite different until the introduction of artificial lighting, and historical data suggest that we used to sleep longer and had more undisturbed nights. Fast forward to today, and most of us get a daily overload of junk light that may contribute to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, or obesity. As most of us have known since childhood, the connection between food and health is obvious. As for a balanced diet, balanced light exposure is essential for optimal health. We have all been bombarded by information on the risks of sun exposure and its connection to skin cancer. With this said, the body needs a balanced amount of UVA and UVB for sufficient vitamin D and serotonin levels. It is all about the right balanced exposure. You can read about the connection between the sun and sleep in this article.
As described earlier in this article, the right amount of blue light is essential for setting the internal clock and regulating sleep and wakefulness. Getting too little or too much, depending on the time, can drastically affect our health in a bad way. As it is for sunlight, there has to be a balancing factor controlling the exposure. New research studies demonstrate that blue light blocking glasses are an effective tool to use during extensive screen time and before going to bed.
Research indicates that a high amount of blue light exposure can inflict damage to the cells in the eyes, leading to eye damage in the form of age-related macular degeneration and cataracts.
How to test blue light glasses?
THL SLEEP is the market-leading brand for blue light blocking glasses specially made for sleep improvement. With development backed by the latest science, our glasses are carefully created with the best performance and materials as used by well-known premium brands. To test the effectiveness of your glasses, you can easily find a blue light glasses test in this article.
We hope this article has been helpful for you and provided a quick overview of the benefits of wearing blue light blocking glasses for sleep improvement. In today’s digital society, filtering out high-energy blue light has become an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. Let us educate others about the dangers of blue light and the easy way to manage our daily light consumption.
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Happy Deep Sleep,
Oskar Eriksson, M.Sc.
The Sleep Engineer™