HERO
Get a good night sleep by filtering your phones blue light
(Oct 13 2017 at 02:39am)How often do you get a good night’s sleep? If the answer is anything less than “Always”, then you might want to consider the impact your gadgets are having on your nightly slumber.
While it’s common for many of us to unwind in the evening reading eBooks, watching Netflix or catching up on Facebook on our phones or tablets, experts are united in their belief that this is not healthy.
American Medical Association’s Council on Science and Public Health concluded: “…exposure to excessive light at night, including extended use of various electronic media, can disrupt sleep or exacerbate sleep disorders”.
So what exactly is the problem, and what can we do about it?
The Problem with Blue Light
Studies have repeatedly warned that using gadgets in the evening affects both the quantity and quality of our sleep.
The cause is exposure to light at night time. Or, more specifically, it’s exposure to short wavelength blue light — the kind given off by our phones and tablets and pretty much any gadget with an illuminated display.
Sunlight also contains blue light, and it is vital during the day. It’s what helps to keep us awake and alert, and it’s an integral part of how sleep cycles work.
But exposure to blue light at night is a bad thing, as it effectively tricks your brain into thinking that it’s still daytime. It suppresses the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that is produced at night and prepares the body for sleep.
Its impact is so great, in fact, that another study even suggested that having a blue LED shining from a car dashboard would be an effective way of preventing drivers from falling asleep at the wheel.
Incidentally, melatonin suppression isn’t just linked to poor sleep. Some reports have linked it to illnesses like cancer and diabetes too.
So, what do you do, short of turning your phone off hours before you go to bed?
Head into the Play Store, and you’ll find numerous apps that provide the solution: they filter out the blue light entirely.
The Solution
Most of the blue light filtering apps work in a similar way. They do nothing during daylight hours, but after sunset place a red overlay on the screen to change its color temperature.
This gives everything a red hue, which takes a little getting used to. But it also cancels out the negative effects of the blue light, and massively decreases glare. Even if you’re skeptical about it improving your sleep, you will immediately notice a reduction in eye strain when using your phone in a dimly lit room
The apps aren’t perfect. The use of a red overlay reduces contrast, and it turns blacks into a dark shade of red.
They also trigger a security feature in Android where certain buttons become inaccessible when overlays are in place. You’ll most likely notice it if you attempt to install an app from somewhere other than the Play Store. You have to pause or close the filtering app to press the Install button.
Apps recommended are as follows:-
Twilight
The Root Option: Twilight
Sub-Zero Brightness With Lux
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