Sleep has always been difficult for me. Even when I was a child, I often had trouble falling asleep and sleeping through the night. And as a result, I very often felt tired.
So throughout the years I’ve been researching all kinds of things on how I can optimize sleep. I created evening routines. Did slow relaxing bedtime yoga, before going to sleep. Got blackout curtains.
But there’s one thing that everyone tells you to do that I did not do. And that is to not look at a screen for two to three hours before bed.
I know, I know, we’re supposed to have a life outside of the virtual world. But I’m usually pretty busy throughout the day. So in the evenings, I like to have some time to simply browse on my phone. I also use lots of apps for things like reading and meditation. Basically, I want to be able to use my phone in the evening! Period.
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Enter blue light blockers!
At this point, I had heard about blue light blockers but never really looked into the whole thing. Honestly, I thought they were kind of a fad and they wouldn’t really “work”.
But then at some point, my husband got me a pair of blue light blocking glasses of Amazon. I guess he was just tired of me being tired and not sleeping well…
So I got over my scepticism and decided to try them. But, not without finding out if these things actually work!
Cue my blue light blocking glasses test!
Related: My favorite hack to relieve fatigue – quickly and healthily!
What is blue light?
So before we go into the details of how I tested the glasses, let’s back up for a second and go over the basics. Just so that you know why we’re even talking about blocking blue light and sleep in the same sentence!
When we talk about blue light, we simply mean the blue part of the visible spectrum of light. The colors of this spectrum differ in terms of wavelengths and energy. And blue light has pretty high energy levels, just like ultraviolet rays.
Why is blue light blocking important?
So now the question is, why do we care specifically about blue light? Well, we’ve known about the importance of protecting our eyes and skin from ultraviolet rays for years. We wear sunscreen outside and put on sunglasses if it’s too bright.
But in the meantime, we’ve started using lots of devices when we’re inside. And not just for a few minutes, but most of the day. And guess what kind of light these devices are using?
Exactly, blue light!
In large amounts, this type of light can damage our eyes. And in any amount, it influences our wake-and-sleep rhythm. So if you’re sitting in bed, scrolling through your feed, like me, your brain thinks its waking time!
Not exactly helpful if you’re trying to get better sleep!
What do blue light blockers do?
So now blue light glasses come into play. These glasses filter out those blue light rays, just as the name suggests.
While wearing them, you’ll see everything a little yellow because the blue is missing. This means, you should be able to use your devices without your brain getting the signal that it’s still daytime.
And, in theory, this should mean you fall asleep easier and get better and deeper sleep.
How do you know if blue light blockers work?
So how do you actually know if the blue light glasses are working? You measure your sleep quality with and without them!
Luckily, when my husband got me these glasses, I was taking part in a study for a health tracker. It’s this kind of bracelet that you wear on your wrist and it tells you how well you sleep, how deep you sleep and so on.
So, even though I was still skeptical about the glasses I was going to try them while also tracking their effectiveness. I wanted to know if blue light blockers actually made a difference.
I didn’t want to skew the results by being obsessive about my sleep results. So I didn’t check my sleep measurements every day. Instead, I just wore my bracelet every night and used the blue light glasses every evening for one to two hours before sleep. The minimum was one hour.
