You Know Who Wears Sunglasses Inside?
March 5, 2015 12:37 PM   Subscribe

We know that light affects our circadian rhythms and vitamin D levels. The wavelength or color of light matters at different times of day, as well as the amount we receive overall. But now we know that blue-blocking glasses really do help increase melatonin levels if worn at night before bed. Dr. Mariana Figueiro, program director at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, says that they "need to remove transmission of light below 530 nm" to be effective.

Blue light triggers us to be awake, but it isn't only reaching us from our screens. Though there are programs such as f.lux and Redshift, if you would like to address your screen's light.

If you'd like to get more blue light to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder or to wake up less abruptly, there are portable light boxes and gradually brightening lamps. And now you can use also alternate your light bulbs for different times of the day. Or wear a headset that can shine light in your eyes.

You could also take melatonin before bed. And vitamin D, but be careful about large doses.

Previously. Previously.
posted by wendyfairy (34 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hmmm, I wonder if I can order my prescription glasses with that blue blocking magic...

I have these which block blue and green light for the purpose of preventing and relieving migraines. Yes, they work. And yes, you can get them with prescription lenses. I have an indoor pair and a polarized outdoor pair (polarized is now special order, but still available). I love these sunglasses. I do frequently wear them inside (including the outdoor ones if I have a migraine).
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 12:48 PM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


I dunno... Corey Hart?
posted by Ratio at 12:50 PM on March 5, 2015 [12 favorites]


f.lux is crazy good. Whenever I occasionally disable it to watch a movie or do graphics work, the intensity of the monitor is actually painful.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 12:57 PM on March 5, 2015 [18 favorites]


F.lux is great, but I occasionally find myself find photo editing, and if I forget about it as the night wears on, the colors get pretty weird.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 1:03 PM on March 5, 2015 [3 favorites]


These considerations need to enter into the design of LED based municipal streetlights, now that we're buying them instead of sodium vapor.
posted by ocschwar at 1:09 PM on March 5, 2015 [5 favorites]


I wear my blue blockers at night.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:17 PM on March 5, 2015 [8 favorites]


Alternatively rubylith film cut to size and bluetack for your screens to cut out the blue light.
posted by Flitcraft at 1:18 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Flitcraft, I haven't seen rubylith since the days when "paste" meant rubber cement, does it still exist?

I am intrigued by this for my husband, who has trouble getting to sleep. He's also colorblind, though, so I wonder if that makes any difference?
posted by emjaybee at 1:26 PM on March 5, 2015


Are there any of these that work for TV or consoles? I have an XBOX One and watch a lot of stuff at night. Probably should knock that off.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:36 PM on March 5, 2015


I'm so used to f.lux for my computer screen that it's hard to use my phone or tablet at night- is there an iOS app that does what f.lux does?
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 1:40 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


Cocoons sells lenses that happen to block the part of the spectrum (~480nm) involved in circadian rhythm entrainment. Anecdotally, this is one of many interventions that failed to make a dent in my long-standing sleep cycle issues.
posted by dephlogisticated at 1:41 PM on March 5, 2015


You can buy orange lightbulbs at like home depot. I use those and f.lux. No glasses needed.
posted by zeek321 at 1:44 PM on March 5, 2015


I don't know about rubylith, but you could get some cheap CTO (color temperature orange) gels made for studio lighting and stick that on your screen. Probably 1/4 or 1/8 would be strong enough. Not sure if a tablet touchscreen would still work through them.
posted by echo target at 1:47 PM on March 5, 2015


Yes rubylith still exists and is sold on ebay for astronomers to put over their screens to save their night vision. It's very cheap too! Don't know about colourblindness but it cuts out the blue light nicely. I've had good results with it. I use a small bit for the phone and a larger bit for the laptop.
posted by Flitcraft at 1:51 PM on March 5, 2015


F.lux is available on iOS, but only if your device is jailbroken. One of the dwindling reasons I still jailbreak my iDevices.
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 1:52 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've actually been wondering if it would improve my sleep to just rely entirely on candlelight for illumination after 8pm or so. But I don't think my roommate would be super into it...
posted by showbiz_liz at 1:59 PM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


I was going to spoof the lyrics for "Sunglasses at Night" (Corey Hart), but then it turns out they're already inane.
posted by five fresh fish at 2:03 PM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


YMonitorMV, but it's worth knowing what f.lux does and doesn't do.

Compare white, and white with f.lux, as done by Craig at LEDMuseum on his monitor:
displaying white
displaying white running f.lux

(LEDMuseum is one of the gems of the Internet, from before the Web even came along; much there)

f.lux changes the color temperature -- what you perceive -- by changing the proportions.
It doesn't eliminate -- it can't eliminate -- the blue emission from the LEDs.
That's what makes white LEDs fluoresce (yes, they're fluorescent -- driven by high intensity blue photons).

It's one of those "trust, but verify" -- I've even seen one scientific journal article in which the authors found no suppression of melatonin by blue light compared to no-blue.

But they used f.lux for their "no-blue" source.

But they didn't use a spectrometer.
I emailed them to inquire. They just didn't know and didn't verify what they were using.

People's response to this varies enormously. Anecdotal "does" "does not" is recreational typing, and plentiful in discussions of this.

Source:

Any good theatrical supply or photography shop stocks Rosco colored filter gels -- 2 foot square for around $7. The Rosco page shows the transmission spectrum and percentage for each choice. I like their medium amber or #10 yellow. Tape across the top of the monitor, flip it up for daytime, flip it down at night. The film material works fine laid over both both pressure sensitive screens (old PDAs and such) and whatchacallit electric-sensitive screens (i-things).

Google Scholar will find you the references on this -- it's quite new science. Last millenium we knew bright light helped reset the circadian clock. More recently a new chemical receptor was discovered in the eye, separate from the rods and cones that are visual receptors. It's sensitive in a very narrow blue-green range.

'oogle Light and Biological Rhythms in Man by Wetterburg and look at p.41 for the strength of the effect:

"... the spatial location of retinal photoreceptors has a role mediating the therapeutic and biological effects of light. Specifically, when the entire visual field is steadily exposed, relatively low levels of illumination (5 lux of monochromatic green light or 100 lux of white light) can suppress melatonin." fn 14, 38
posted by hank at 2:12 PM on March 5, 2015 [23 favorites]


Accept No Substitutes.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 2:14 PM on March 5, 2015


So much for my late-night Metafilter habit.
posted by the_blizz at 3:00 PM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


Similar to f.lux but for Android is Twilight.
posted by mountmccabe at 3:07 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


So much for my late-night Metafilter habit.

We just need a new Metafilter color theme..."Late Night Orange".
posted by rocket88 at 3:21 PM on March 5, 2015 [10 favorites]


How do those Vitamin D claims square with the advice from examine.com? Examine.com claims anything below 10,000IU/day is safe.
posted by mad bomber what bombs at midnight at 3:41 PM on March 5, 2015


In answer to your title question, I was once told by a psychiatrist I worked with that the only people that wore sunglasses indoors were drug addicts and schizophrenics. That was in 1972, it could be different now.
posted by HuronBob at 4:08 PM on March 5, 2015


I'm seriously thinking of getting some dorky orange goggles. I've already put black electrical tape (with a tiny strategic pinhole sometimes) over most of the stupid blue LEDs that everything seems to come with nowadays. THE FUTURE IS HERE AND IT IS BLINDINGLY GLORIOUS!
posted by BrotherCaine at 4:17 PM on March 5, 2015


More recently a new chemical receptor was discovered in the eye, separate from the rods and cones that are visual receptors. It's sensitive in a very narrow blue-green range.

So this means we could have 'white' LED streetlights with a high CRI but without this critical band and not ruin our melatonin production?
posted by a halcyon day at 4:57 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


I got somethin' to say to you and you better listen
I'll tell ya how to be cool in one easy lesson

Sunglasses after dark
Ah, they're so sharp!
And you'll be cool
And the squares'll drool
posted by charlie don't surf at 5:32 PM on March 5, 2015 [1 favorite]


> streetlights ... without this critical band ....?

Not easily but there's work in that direction. I've been collecting tidbits on this issue since 2007, thanks to a very tolerant blogger who's let me leave them in one of her threads. (Included therein are a couple of pointers to earlier MeFi discussions)

This, on that blog, is good current info on streetlights -- my summary, with pointers to sources
posted by hank at 6:28 PM on March 5, 2015 [2 favorites]


Cocoons sells lenses that happen to block the part of the spectrum (~480nm) involved in circadian rhythm entrainment. ...

It's interesting that the retinal ganglion layer photoreceptors that modulate circadian rhythms have peak sensitivity around 480nm, because that happens to be the wavelength at which vitamin D fluoresces under UV light.

Which may not be a coincidence considering the existence of significant levels of vitamin D in the cornea.

And since the Sun's corona extends some distance out into space and emits enough UV to make looking at an eclipse directly even with the solar disk blocked out dangerous, the fluorescence of vitamin D could possibly lead to significant potential for resetting circadian rhythms after sunset and before sunrise.

480 nm is also very close to the point in the spectrum where the red cones and the blue cones have equal sensitivity and the point where the green cones and the blue cones have equal sensitivity, but I can't think of any good reason for that.
posted by jamjam at 10:13 PM on March 5, 2015 [4 favorites]


So...I work at nights. Sleep in the daytime. Can this help me? If I wear the special sunglasses after the sun comes up?
posted by atchafalaya at 12:23 AM on March 6, 2015


f.lux changes the color temperature -- what you perceive -- by changing the proportions.
It doesn't eliminate -- it can't eliminate -- the blue emission from the LEDs.
That's what makes white LEDs fluoresce (yes, they're fluorescent -- driven by high intensity blue photons).

It's one of those "trust, but verify" -- I've even seen one scientific journal article in which the authors found no suppression of melatonin by blue light compared to no-blue.

But they used f.lux for their "no-blue" source.

On my macbook air, f.lux doesn't turn the blue pixels all the way off. Mostly off, but not all the way off. One can test this by looking at an image with discrete all-red, all-blue, and all-green regions like an RGB additive color mixing diagram on wikipedia.

The linux program redshift I use on my Lenovo laptop will turn the blue pixels all the way off if you tell it to do so, and I think it makes me more sleepy.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:53 AM on March 6, 2015


I just got flux and I still am not entirely sure what is "different" other than it looks a little dimmer if I've got the laptop on but stop using it for a bit.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:53 PM on March 6, 2015


While flux is running, click "disable for an hour". If it is night, and flux is properly configured, your screen's colors will shift blue-ward. If you have that RGB diagram up on the screen at the time you can see what it does to red, green, and blue pixels.

If it doesn't do much, set "Lighting at night"'s color temperature to 'Candle', instead of where it is now, like 'Halogen' or 'Daylight' or something.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:46 PM on March 6, 2015


Ah.

I updated redshift to the most recent version, and now the color temperature goes down to 1200K; and the blue pixels turn off.
posted by sebastienbailard at 9:48 PM on March 10, 2015


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