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Episode Transcript
How your phone could be keeping you up at night.
What's going on.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm rich Demiro, this is Rich on Tech.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
So I've been hearing for a while how the blue
light from both our computer screens and also our phone.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Screens are keeping us up at night.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
But I didn't really put much thought into it until
I was at a bunch of different parties and a
lot of separate people started telling me that they're concerned
about this, and they've gotten glasses to help them, They've
adjusted their settings on their phones. So I figured I
want to do a little bit more research, talk to
an expert and see what is going on with this
blue light and figure out what we can do to
help us sleep better. And I consulted a's sleep expert.
(00:40):
His name is doctor raj Da Skupta. He says blue
light is actually essential to the human body. It occurs
naturally from the sun. It tells us when to wake
up and when to sleep, but too much of it
could be a problem.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
This blue light will hit a receptor called melanopsin, and
melanopsin actually will go on to suppress the release of melatonin.
And as you may know, melatonin is a very very
important hormone we talk about getting good sleep. It's released
by the pinal gland in our brain. So you can
imagine that in most individuals we like to wake up
(01:11):
during the morning and go to bed at night. And
how do we actually get this circadian rhythm what we
call in trained in our twenty four to seven society,
it's exposure to light. You want lots of exposure during
the morning and you want limited exposure at night.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
So because our phones emit all this blue light, the
more we look at them, the more it kind of
confuses our brain, especially if we're looking at this blue
light late at night, and a lot of us do that.
We look at our phone right before we go to sleep,
and that could be keeping us up at night.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
At night when a lot of us are going to
be on these devices, you can imagine lots of blue light.
It prevents the release of what melatonin, and it's just
another thing contributing to maybe not getting to sleep we want.
Because in society, what is the big topic. It's insomnia
and it's sleep deprivation. So if it's something that could
help us out a little bit, this is why blue
(02:01):
light is such a big topic.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
So there are several ways we can limit our exposure
to blue light. So first off, you can wear special glasses.
There's a company named Felix Gray. They make glasses that
are designed to reduce eye stress by filtering out blue light,
and these glasses cost about one hundred dollars. I tested
a pair called Nash they were ninety five dollars, and
the company also recently introduced sunglasses that perform a similar function.
(02:26):
The company says the glasses can reduce eyestrain, headaches, and
fatigue from all the hours we spend staring at screens.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
So it's not only that you'd actually wear these blue
light shades and all of a sudden, the next night
you got great sleep. It doesn't work like that. The
foundation of good sleep is what we call cognitive behavioral therapy.
It's your actions, it's your behaviors. So you always have
to add on to that.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And here's the funny thing about all this.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Back in the day, when I was at c NEET,
there was a company called Gunner Optics that were marketing
these glasses that were for like gamers who looked at
screens for a long time. And I always sort of
discounted them, thinking, come on, do we really need special
glasses for looking at screens? And it's kind of funny
how everything has come full circle and now this is
definitely a big thing. Also, I know a lot of
eye doctors are allowing people to put blue light filters
(03:10):
in their prescription glasses, so it's definitely a thing now.
When it comes to your devices, there are some settings
you can change to make the screen emit less blue
light when it's getting close to your bedtime. So what
it does is it kind of puts your phone on
the warmer spectrum of things.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
So normally your phone screen has kind of this.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Blue bright white look to it, but when your phone
is on a blue light filter setting, Apple calls it
night shift for them, it will actually look a little
bit warmer, so it almost looks like it has a
red tint. So if you're on the iPhone, you can
go into settings, then display Brightness and look for night shift.
This will make your display a pure warmer and less
(03:48):
blue and you can have it turn on during schedule
times or you can have it follow sunrise and sunset.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
So you probably want to.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Have it due schedule times if you have a bedtime
that you try to keep, so Let's say you go
to bed at eight o'clock every night, you can have
night shift come on at six pm every night, So
if you're looking at your phone before you go.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
To bed, it's going to have that blue light filtered out.
Android devices also do this.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
If you're on a Samsung device, you can go into
settings and then under display look.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
For blue light filter.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
If you have another brand of Android, just go into
your settings and search for blue light, or search for
blue or search for filter, or just search for display
and look through all the settings in there, and I'm
sure you'll find something that has to do with blue light.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Even on Windows ten.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
If you have a desktop computer or laptop with Windows
ten and the appropriate latest software.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
You can schedule night light.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
So all you have to do is go Start and
then Settings and then System and then Display and then
night light and you'll see the settings for that and
that will do the same thing. It will change your
screen to have a less blue que And if you're
on a Mac computer you can do the same. You
go to the Apple Menu System Preferences and then click
displays and look for the night shift tab and again
(04:59):
all of these system in the settings lets you turn
this on. Automatically, which is probably the best, and a
lot of them let you follow sunrise and sunset. And
if you have a tablet, you probably want to do
the same switch to settings on there so that you
filter out your blue light as well.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Now here's the bad news.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Doctor Raj recommends no phone or screens two hours before bedtime,
which I know that's not always easy. And what's not
clear to me is that if you're looking at your
screen with the night shift on before bed, is that
still counted towards those two hours or is it just
a little bit better because you don't have all that
blue light? But the reality is I think anything will
help at this point. So if you have those night
(05:33):
shift settings on you can do the best you can
to not be on your phone right before bed, then
that's probably a good thing.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We all have this Pablovian reflex to be an arms
distance of our cell phone. Who's snapchatting me and who's
instagramming me? So I think that if you are going
to look at your phone, there is no downside in
using a blue light shad. It's kind of like called
a low lying fruit, you know what I mean. Especially
now there's more data about is there healthcare in the
eye involved here.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
And here's the flip side of all this.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
If blue light is bad, it sounds like red light
might actually be better. So that's why these screens turn
to that warmer red color. But if you have some
of those smart color changing light bulbs in your house,
maybe set those to a warm red light before bedtime
and this could help signal to your body that it's
time to sleep.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Personally, I do this.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I've got those color changing lights in my bedroom and
I've always used like sort of a pink or a
red at night, just because the first time I looked
inside the lifix app, it said relax and it was
sort of a pink shade. And now I've just kind
of stuck with that. And now that I've heard that
red is better, that's what I have at night.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
All wavelengths of light could actually suppress melotonin, but red
light may do with the least and some data may
say it actually increases the production of melatonin.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
So there you have it, adjusting those settings on your
phone to help you get some better sleep. And again
this is just one part of healthy sleep. Look, if
you're chugging a red bull right before bed and you've
got your blue light filter on, doesn't necessarily mean you're
gonna fall asleep instantly. So this is all part of
a healthy lifestyle and one other thing I learned doing
research for this story.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
It's not cut and dry.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yes, it seems like a lot of experts agree that
this blue light is a problem, But just how much
of a problem and to what extent it affects our sleep,
We're not one hundred percent sure, but the reality is
clearly these settings are built into the phones. The major
manufacturers have caught on to this, so I think there's
something here there.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
You have it.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
If you want to see those instructions one more time,
you can go to my website it's rich on tech
dot tv, or you can check the show notes to
see how to turn on the night shift or the
blue light filter settings on your particular device.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
If you love this podcast, please tell a friend I'm
Rich jamiro I'll talk to you real soon.
Host
Rich DeMuro
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