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