Goodmorning all,
we hope you had slept well last night!
Maybe it could be better, we know it, but now just a question: “at what time did you switch off pc/mac/tablet/smartphone and you started looking some non-blue-light-emitting surface?”
Many are sceptics and think this “belief” of Circadian rhythm and blue lights are things for scientists or just a new business. But this is not!
Blue-light-emitting surfaces are actually affecting our hormone production. In particular, this kind of lights are unbalancing our production boosting cortisol hormone and suppressing melatonin.
These two hormones are the so-called antagonist, so one suppresses the effect of the other and their secretion is rhythmically driven in quantity by the brain.
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Cortisol is the hormone which keeps you alerted, reactive and sometimes if present in too high quantities: stressed!
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Melatonin has both a soporific effect and an ability to catch the sleep-wake rhythm. Melatonin treatment has been reported to be effective in the treatment of disorders such as jet lag and delayed sleep phase syndrome.
In this post we suggest to install onto your pc/mac/tablets/smartphones the following add-on software which it will help you to mitigate this unbalance effects. The blogger did it with very satisfactory results.
This software name is: f.lux
https://justgetflux.com/
picture #1: f.lux logo
f.lux is a cross-platform computer program that adjusts a display’s colour temperature according to location and time of day. The program was designed to reduce eye strain during night-time use and reduce disruption of sleep patterns.
f.lux proponents hypothesize that altering the colour temperature of a display to reduce the prominence of white–blue light at night will improve the effectiveness of sleep. This software is totally free: important to say!
Picture #2: half of the screen filtered with f.lux and half not
Reducing exposure to blue light at night time has been linked to increased melatonin secretion and better sleep quality.
Although the developer provides a list of relevant research on their website, the program itself has not been scientifically tested to determine its efficacy.
In spite of this, f.lux has been widely and positively reviewed by technology journalists, bloggers, and users.
Have a try on it, it doesn’t cost a dime and won’t harm your computer, it will help you instead to reach your bed more relaxed and ready to sleep!
Picture #3: clicking on the small icon on the taskbar you will be able to have a look onto your supposed cortisol-melatonin balance during the day.
Blue lights simply delay your natural sleep-time!
Today is possible to preview the side effects of this exposure calculating it on the basis of data such as:
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date
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time of the day
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age
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distance from the screen
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type of light source
You have here different blue-light quantities present in the normal daylight cycle, in an electronic device screen and in a candle.
The same software producer, give you the possibility to meter the blue-light emitted from your device, have yourself a look here:
https://fluxometer.com/rainbow/#!id=lights/candle&age=35
- daylight 7am
- daylight 10am sunny
- electronic device candle
- candle light
for further information about the subject, you can refer to another desk study done on Circadian rhythm done in this blog.
and goodnight !
Selected references
- al Enezi, Jazi, et al. “A ‘melanopic’ spectral efficiency function predicts the sensitivity of melanopsin photoreceptors to polychromatic lights.” Journal of biological rhythms 26.4 (2011): 314-323.
- Brainard, George C., et al. “Action spectrum for melatonin regulation in humans: evidence for a novel circadian photoreceptor.” The Journal of Neuroscience 21.16 (2001): 6405-6412.
- Brown, Timothy M., et al. The melanopic sensitivity function accounts for melanopsin-driven responses in mice under diverse lighting conditions. PloS one 8.1 (2013): e53583.
- Chang, Anne-Marie, et al. “Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112.4 (2015): 1232-1237.
- CIE. (1926). Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage Proceedings, 1924. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- CIE. (1932). Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage Proceedings, 1931. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- CIE 170-1:2006. “Fundamental Chromaticity Diagram with Physiological Axes” Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage Proceedings, 2006.
- CIE TN 003:2015. Report on the First International Workshop on Circadian and Neurophysiological Photometry, 2013.
Cleve, K. “The approach of the butterflies to artificial light sources.” Mitt. Deut. Ent. Ges 23 (1964): 66-76.
- Gall, Dietrich, and Karin Bieske. “Definition and measurement of circadian radiometric quantities.” Proceedings of the CIE Symposium ‘04 on Light and Health. 2004.
- Gooley, Joshua J., et al. “Exposure to room light before bedtime suppresses melatonin onset and shortens melatonin duration in humans.” Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 96.3 (2010): E463-E472.
- Gooley, Joshua J., et al. “Spectral responses of the human circadian system depend on the irradiance and duration of exposure to light.” Science Translational Medicine 2.31 (2010): 31ra33-31ra33.
- Govardovskii, Victor I., et al. “In search of the visual pigment template.” Visual neuroscience 17.04 (2000): 509-528.
- International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection. “ICNIRP Guidelines on limits of exposure to incoherent visible and infrared radiation.” Health Physics 105.1 (2013): 74-96.
- International Electrotechnical Commission. “IEC 62471: 2006.” Photobiological safety of lamps and lamp systems. Geneva: IEC (2006).
- Lockley, Steven W., George C. Brainard, and Charles A. Czeisler. “High sensitivity of the human circadian melatonin rhythm to resetting by short wavelength light.” J Clin Endocrinol Metab 88.9 (2003): 4502-4505.
- Lockley, Steven W., et al. “Short-wavelength sensitivity for the direct effects of light on alertness, vigilance, and the waking electroencephalogram in humans.” SLEEP 29.2 (2006): 161.
- Longcore, Travis, et al. “Tuning the white light spectrum of light emitting diode lamps to reduce attraction of nocturnal arthropods.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 370.1667 (2015): 20140125.
- Menzel, R., and U. Greggers. “Natural phototaxis and its relationship to colour vision in honeybees.” Journal of Comparative Physiology A 157.3 (1985): 311-321.
- Lucas, Robert J., et al. “Irradiance Toolbox.”
- Lucas, Robert J., et al. “How rod, cone, and melanopsin photoreceptors come together to enlighten the mammalian circadian clock.” Progress in brain research 199 (2011): 1-18.
- Lucas, Robert J., et al. “Measuring and using light in the melanopsin age.” Trends in neurosciences 37.1 (2014): 1-9.
- Lund, D. J., J. Marshall, and J. Mellerio. “A computerized approach to transmission and absorption characteristics of the human eye.” CIE. Vol. 203. 2012.
- Rahman, Shadab A., et al. “Diurnal spectral sensitivity of the acute alerting effects of light.” Sleep 37.2 (2014): 271-281.
- Rea, Mark S., et al. “Circadian light.” Journal of circadian rhythms 8.1 (2010): 2.
- van der Lely, Stéphanie, et al. “Blue blocker glasses as a countermeasure for alerting effects of evening light-emitting diode screen exposure in male teenagers.” Journal of Adolescent Health 56.1 (2015): 113-119.
- Zeitzer, Jamie M., et al. “Sensitivity of the human circadian pacemaker to nocturnal light: melatonin phase resetting and suppression.” The Journal of physiology 526.3 (2000): 695-702.
- Zeitzer, Jamie M., et al. “Temporal dynamics of late-night photic stimulation of the human circadian timing system.” American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology 289.3 (2005): R839-R844.
- “f.lux for iOS”. f.lux. Retrieved January 15, 2016.
- Zukerman, Erez (October 31, 2013). “Review: f.lux makes your computer usable at night”. PC World. Retrieved 3 March 2015.
- Tanous, Jim (October 15, 2014). “Save Your Eyes and Improve Your Sleep with f.lux for OS X and Windows”. TekRevue. Retrieved January 15, 2016.
- Takeshi, Morita; Hiromi, Tokura (1996). “Effects of Lights of Different Color Temperature on the Nocturnal Changes in Core Temperature and Melatonin in Humans”. Journal of Physiological Anthropology. 15 (5): 243–6. PMID 8979406
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.lux
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