WEBVTT - Turn On Blue Light Filter For Better Sleep 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:07.040 How your phone could be keeping you up at night. 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:07.760 What's going on. 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:10.280 I'm rich Demiro, this is Rich on Tech. 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:12.240 So I've been hearing for a while how the blue 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:15.560 light from both our computer screens and also our phone. 0:00:15.280 --> 0:00:16.760 Screens are keeping us up at night. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.080 But I didn't really put much thought into it until 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:21.560 I was at a bunch of different parties and a 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:24.680 lot of separate people started telling me that they're concerned 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:27.480 about this, and they've gotten glasses to help them, They've 0:00:27.480 --> 0:00:29.560 adjusted their settings on their phones. So I figured I 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:31.200 want to do a little bit more research, talk to 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.760 an expert and see what is going on with this 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.440 blue light and figure out what we can do to 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:40.200 help us sleep better. And I consulted a's sleep expert. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:42.720 His name is doctor raj Da Skupta. He says blue 0:00:42.760 --> 0:00:45.839 light is actually essential to the human body. It occurs 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:47.680 naturally from the sun. It tells us when to wake 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.360 up and when to sleep, but too much of it 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:51.400 could be a problem. 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:55.560 This blue light will hit a receptor called melanopsin, and 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.840 melanopsin actually will go on to suppress the release of melatonin. 0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.520 And as you may know, melatonin is a very very 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.360 important hormone we talk about getting good sleep. It's released 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.720 by the pinal gland in our brain. So you can 0:01:08.800 --> 0:01:11.600 imagine that in most individuals we like to wake up 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:13.720 during the morning and go to bed at night. And 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.600 how do we actually get this circadian rhythm what we 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.080 call in trained in our twenty four to seven society, 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:23.160 it's exposure to light. You want lots of exposure during 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:25.920 the morning and you want limited exposure at night. 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:29.360 So because our phones emit all this blue light, the 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.240 more we look at them, the more it kind of 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.080 confuses our brain, especially if we're looking at this blue 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:36.280 light late at night, and a lot of us do that. 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:38.440 We look at our phone right before we go to sleep, 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:40.800 and that could be keeping us up at night. 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:42.600 At night when a lot of us are going to 0:01:42.680 --> 0:01:46.280 be on these devices, you can imagine lots of blue light. 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:49.920 It prevents the release of what melatonin, and it's just 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.920 another thing contributing to maybe not getting to sleep we want. 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.080 Because in society, what is the big topic. It's insomnia 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:59.240 and it's sleep deprivation. So if it's something that could 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:01.400 help us out a little bit, this is why blue 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:02.960 light is such a big topic. 0:02:03.200 --> 0:02:05.840 So there are several ways we can limit our exposure 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.840 to blue light. So first off, you can wear special glasses. 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.799 There's a company named Felix Gray. They make glasses that 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:16.280 are designed to reduce eye stress by filtering out blue light, 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.840 and these glasses cost about one hundred dollars. I tested 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.960 a pair called Nash they were ninety five dollars, and 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:25.840 the company also recently introduced sunglasses that perform a similar function. 0:02:26.200 --> 0:02:29.640 The company says the glasses can reduce eyestrain, headaches, and 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.519 fatigue from all the hours we spend staring at screens. 0:02:33.880 --> 0:02:36.440 So it's not only that you'd actually wear these blue 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:38.040 light shades and all of a sudden, the next night 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:40.280 you got great sleep. It doesn't work like that. The 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.359 foundation of good sleep is what we call cognitive behavioral therapy. 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:46.040 It's your actions, it's your behaviors. So you always have 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:46.960 to add on to that. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:48.240 And here's the funny thing about all this. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.040 Back in the day, when I was at c NEET, 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:53.919 there was a company called Gunner Optics that were marketing 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.400 these glasses that were for like gamers who looked at 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.640 screens for a long time. And I always sort of 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.160 discounted them, thinking, come on, do we really need special 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:03.480 glasses for looking at screens? And it's kind of funny 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:05.720 how everything has come full circle and now this is 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:08.000 definitely a big thing. Also, I know a lot of 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.560 eye doctors are allowing people to put blue light filters 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.760 in their prescription glasses, so it's definitely a thing now. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.880 When it comes to your devices, there are some settings 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:18.680 you can change to make the screen emit less blue 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:21.520 light when it's getting close to your bedtime. So what 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:23.560 it does is it kind of puts your phone on 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:25.080 the warmer spectrum of things. 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.680 So normally your phone screen has kind of this. 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.720 Blue bright white look to it, but when your phone 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.360 is on a blue light filter setting, Apple calls it 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.280 night shift for them, it will actually look a little 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:39.280 bit warmer, so it almost looks like it has a 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.440 red tint. So if you're on the iPhone, you can 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:45.320 go into settings, then display Brightness and look for night shift. 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.000 This will make your display a pure warmer and less 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:50.520 blue and you can have it turn on during schedule 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:53.600 times or you can have it follow sunrise and sunset. 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:54.560 So you probably want to. 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:57.080 Have it due schedule times if you have a bedtime 0:03:57.120 --> 0:03:58.800 that you try to keep, so Let's say you go 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:00.400 to bed at eight o'clock every night, you can have 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.920 night shift come on at six pm every night, So 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:04.400 if you're looking at your phone before you go. 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.920 To bed, it's going to have that blue light filtered out. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:09.160 Android devices also do this. 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.280 If you're on a Samsung device, you can go into 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.720 settings and then under display look. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:15.560 For blue light filter. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.560 If you have another brand of Android, just go into 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.440 your settings and search for blue light, or search for 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.840 blue or search for filter, or just search for display 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:27.400 and look through all the settings in there, and I'm 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:29.840 sure you'll find something that has to do with blue light. 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:31.880 Even on Windows ten. 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:34.120 If you have a desktop computer or laptop with Windows 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:36.919 ten and the appropriate latest software. 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:38.279 You can schedule night light. 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:40.720 So all you have to do is go Start and 0:04:40.760 --> 0:04:43.560 then Settings and then System and then Display and then 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.800 night light and you'll see the settings for that and 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:47.280 that will do the same thing. It will change your 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:50.640 screen to have a less blue que And if you're 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:52.240 on a Mac computer you can do the same. You 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.040 go to the Apple Menu System Preferences and then click 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:59.119 displays and look for the night shift tab and again 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.400 all of these system in the settings lets you turn 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:03.800 this on. Automatically, which is probably the best, and a 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.400 lot of them let you follow sunrise and sunset. And 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:07.919 if you have a tablet, you probably want to do 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.159 the same switch to settings on there so that you 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:11.719 filter out your blue light as well. 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:13.000 Now here's the bad news. 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.839 Doctor Raj recommends no phone or screens two hours before bedtime, 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:20.760 which I know that's not always easy. And what's not 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:22.560 clear to me is that if you're looking at your 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.280 screen with the night shift on before bed, is that 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.800 still counted towards those two hours or is it just 0:05:27.839 --> 0:05:29.400 a little bit better because you don't have all that 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:31.880 blue light? But the reality is I think anything will 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:33.800 help at this point. So if you have those night 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:35.680 shift settings on you can do the best you can 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:37.800 to not be on your phone right before bed, then 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:38.760 that's probably a good thing. 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.159 We all have this Pablovian reflex to be an arms 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.360 distance of our cell phone. Who's snapchatting me and who's 0:05:45.360 --> 0:05:48.200 instagramming me? So I think that if you are going 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:50.359 to look at your phone, there is no downside in 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:52.120 using a blue light shad. It's kind of like called 0:05:52.120 --> 0:05:54.000 a low lying fruit, you know what I mean. Especially 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.440 now there's more data about is there healthcare in the 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:58.360 eye involved here. 0:05:58.680 --> 0:05:59.960 And here's the flip side of all this. 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.440 If blue light is bad, it sounds like red light 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.159 might actually be better. So that's why these screens turn 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:08.320 to that warmer red color. But if you have some 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.760 of those smart color changing light bulbs in your house, 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:14.440 maybe set those to a warm red light before bedtime 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:16.480 and this could help signal to your body that it's 0:06:16.520 --> 0:06:17.159 time to sleep. 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:18.160 Personally, I do this. 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.320 I've got those color changing lights in my bedroom and 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:23.919 I've always used like sort of a pink or a 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.280 red at night, just because the first time I looked 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:29.440 inside the lifix app, it said relax and it was 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.360 sort of a pink shade. And now I've just kind 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:33.719 of stuck with that. And now that I've heard that 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:35.560 red is better, that's what I have at night. 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:39.279 All wavelengths of light could actually suppress melotonin, but red 0:06:39.320 --> 0:06:42.120 light may do with the least and some data may 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.880 say it actually increases the production of melatonin. 0:06:45.279 --> 0:06:47.680 So there you have it, adjusting those settings on your 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:49.960 phone to help you get some better sleep. And again 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.800 this is just one part of healthy sleep. Look, if 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.240 you're chugging a red bull right before bed and you've 0:06:55.240 --> 0:06:57.680 got your blue light filter on, doesn't necessarily mean you're 0:06:57.680 --> 0:06:59.919 gonna fall asleep instantly. So this is all part of 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.120 a healthy lifestyle and one other thing I learned doing 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:04.160 research for this story. 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:05.440 It's not cut and dry. 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.040 Yes, it seems like a lot of experts agree that 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:10.520 this blue light is a problem, But just how much 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:13.480 of a problem and to what extent it affects our sleep, 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.200 We're not one hundred percent sure, but the reality is 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.040 clearly these settings are built into the phones. The major 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.000 manufacturers have caught on to this, so I think there's 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:23.080 something here there. 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:23.360 You have it. 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:25.280 If you want to see those instructions one more time, 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.480 you can go to my website it's rich on tech 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:30.000 dot tv, or you can check the show notes to 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.559 see how to turn on the night shift or the 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:35.280 blue light filter settings on your particular device. 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:36.600 Thanks so much for listening. 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.480 If you love this podcast, please tell a friend I'm 0:07:39.560 --> 0:07:41.480 Rich jamiro I'll talk to you real soon.