April 12, 2015
It can be torturous when you finally get in to bed at night, only to lay there for seemingly hours, unable to fall asleep.
One of the downfalls of all the technology made available to us now is that it can make it harder for us to fall asleep and harder to sleep well. You could try a digital detox to help if you're finding it hard to get a good night's rest. However, if that's not realistic, you might want to try a pair of orange shades.
The New York Times looked at how some people are utilizing glasses with an orange tint to block out blue light, which emits from most of our screens and blocks our production of melatonin. Melatonin helps our bodies induce sleep, and orange glasses are just one of the ways that some people are trying to block out blue light to aid in allowing us to produce it more naturally.
The Times spoke to Matt Nicoletti, who wears a pair of Uvex industrial safety glasses when he uses his phone or watches television late at night. Nicole claims they help him sleep better.
A 2009 study found that the glasses don't have to be orange necessarily. The results found that adults who wore yellow and amber tinted safety glasses three hours before bed had improved sleep quality.
However, the research on tinted glasses as a way to improve sleep, as well as other technologies that attempt to block out blue light, is relatively new and not definite. Professor of neuroendocrinology Debra Skene of the University of Surrey in England told the Times that it's best to just cut back on your screen time:
Short of cutting out all evening electronics, experts say, it’s advisable to use a small screen rather than a large one; dim the screen and keep it as far away from the eyes as possible; and reduce the amount of time spent reading the device.
“If you can look at the iPhone for 10 minutes rather than three hours, that makes a lot of difference,” Dr. Skene said.
