What Are Blue Light Glasses, and How Do They Work?

If you spend most of your time looking at a digital screen, you’ve experienced headaches, blurry vision, or dry eyes. These symptoms have you concerned and looking into blue light glasses for women. What are they? How do they work? Are they effective?

Blue light glasses are glasses with special lenses that reduce the amount of blue light reaching your eyes. They filter blue light from digital screens and protect your eyes from glare and potential eye damage from prolonged exposure.

Let’s take an in-depth look at why these glasses are important, how they work, their effects, and their results. 

Why Are Blue Light Lenses Important?

We live in the 21st century, and most jobs and leisure activities have us staring at digital screens. But, unfortunately, these screens emit blue light.

Unfortunately, your eyes don’t handle exposure to blue light at close range and for extended periods well. Studies show that overexposure to blue light is harmful to the retina.

One of the best ways of reducing your exposure to blue light is wearing blue-light-blocking glasses. 

How Do Blue Light Blocking Glasses Work?

To understand how these glasses work, you have to recap how light science works.

Light is a type of electromagnetic radiation. This is why too much exposure to direct sunlight triggers skin cancer. The electromagnetic radiation appears in waves. These waves have different wavelengths, which are expressed in nanometers. Together the range of the wavelengths forms the electromagnetic spectrum.

The light we see (visible light) is a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. It also includes x-rays, microwaves, and radio waves. The human eye responds to wavelengths between 380 and 740 nm. This part of the electromagnetic spectrum is known as the visible light spectrum.

Your eyes and brains process electromagnetic waves present in the visible light spectrum and turn them into everything we see around you.

Why Do We See Different Colours?

Different wavelengths in the visible light spectrum are a representation of different colours.  The longest visible light wavelength is red. Violet has the shortest wavelength of all visible colours. UV light’s wavelength is shorter than this but falls outside the visible light spectrum.

When light hits an object, it’s either absorbed or reflected. Our eyes only pick up on the reflected light. So if an object is red, it means it’s reflecting the red wavelength. An object that reflects all visible light wavelengths appears white, and that which absorbs all appears black.

The blue light emitted by digital screens is on the higher portion of the visible light spectrum. It has a shorter wavelength which means higher energy. Because of its high energy, exposure to it causes eye problems.

Blue-violet light contains lesser energy than UV light, a small percentage of it is filtered as it enters the eye – a lot of it hits the retina. On the flip side, UV light rays are absorbed by the cornea, and less than 5% get to the retina.

Note: blue light from the sun helps control the circadian rhythm (sleep and wake cycle) and memory. Exposure to excessive blue light from digital screens leaves you open to harmful and unnatural effects, including disrupted sleep cycles, headaches, and eye strain.

How Do Blue Light Blocking Lenses Work?

Blue light lenses are created to filter blue light from visible light that’ll hit your retina. Many of these lenses filter out high energy wavelengths between 400 and 440 nm.

However, not all blue light is filtered (though some do and end up affecting colour vision). Instead, the lenses allow some of it to pass to maintain a natural perception of light. This is extremely useful for graphic designers who need to perceive natural colour temperatures to deliver great results at work.

The blue light lenses block just enough light to help the eyes feel relaxed and preserve your sleep and wake cycle.

How Blue Light Lenses Help

Blue light lenses can help you ease some effects of prolonged digital screen use. Some of its benefits include:

·         Improved Sleep

Blue light is essential for the sleep/wake cycle. Essentially, it tells your body when to be awake. For this reason, looking at digital screens at night can alter melatonin production, a chemical that helps you to sleep better at night.

With blue light lenses, exposure to blue light (even without reduced digital screen time) is reduced. As a result, your normal circadian rhythm is maintained.

·         Digital Eye Strain

Digital screen technology has greatly improved over the years. Today, they are sharper, brighter, and have better colour representation. However, the technology and structure are similar to what was there before – pixels.

Unfortunately, your eyes work harder to process images and texts on digital screens despite improved technology. This is because the eyes react to changing images on screens so that the brain can process what you see. This processing takes a lot of effort from eye muscles. And unlike paper, digital screens add glare, flicker, and contrast, making the processing even harder.

Blue light lenses often come with an anti-reflective coating that reduces the strain by reducing the glare from digital screens.

·         Lower Risk of Macular Degeneration

Prolonged exposure to blue light can lead to macular degeneration. Macular degeneration is a portion of the retina that is necessary for vision. Some research shows that overexposure to blue light can damage your retina.

Blue light lenses reduce the amount of blue light and reduce the risk of retina damage. Admittedly, research on this is still in its early stages. But wouldn’t you rather be safe than sorry?

Practice Good Screen Hygiene

Besides getting blue light lenses, you should practice some healthy screen habits that’ll help reduce eye strain. One of the most important practices is the 20-20-20 rule. For every 20 minutes, you stare at your screen, look 20 feet away for 20 seconds.

Other adjustments like taking extended breaks, using the phone in dark mode can supplement the benefits you reap from wearing blue light glasses.