Blue Light

  • Blue Light is a spectrum of light ranging from 380 nm – 500 nm

  • The Visible light spectrum for humans is 380nm - 700nm

  • The suns blue light is unpolarized and most prominent around midday.

  • Artificial Blue light is polarized and is the only spectrum of light that is present in modern LED lighting, all phones, laptops, tablets, TV's and other screens.

  • Modern LED lighting also have high flicker rates, which means the light flickers faster then the human eye can see.

What Is Blue Light?

Diagram showing the electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma rays to radio waves, with a wave illustration showing increasing energy and wavelength, and visible light spectrum from 400 to 700 nanometers in color gradient.

  • Blue light enters the human body through the eyes and skin as we have melanopsin everywhere in the human body. Melanopsin is a blue light detector.

  • Blue light enters your eye through the retina then to the supercoasmatic nucleus, which is an atomic clock that controls all the clocks in your body. This is how our body's master clock know what time of day it is.

  • Blue light enters your skin through melanopsin, this our the clocks in our skin get the input signal for what time of day it is.

How blue light intacts with the body

A 24-hour biological clock diagram displaying the circadian rhythm with day and night cycle, showing high alertness around noon, cortisol release in early morning, deep sleep at night, lowest body temperature around 6 a.m., and melatonin secretion during the night.

Effects of Blue Light on the Human Body

  • Blue light enters your eye through the retina then to the supercoasmatic nucleus. Therefore exposing your retina to this light signals to your brain constantly that is midday.

  • Midday is the time of day that we are evolutionarily meant to be most awake and aware. This is the time of day that our autonomic nervous system is also most engaged.

  • Thus if you expose yourself to blue light, especially in the evenings  it will disrupt your body’s ability to sleep because you will be more awake and your clocks will be tricked to think it’s midday.

Disrupts the body's Circadian Rhythm

A 24-hour circadian clock diagram illustrating body temperature, blood pressure, cortisol release, melatonin secretion, and sleep cycle with daytime and nighttime segments.

  • Melatonin is a hormone of dark that builds up in your body as you expose your skin and eyes to natural sun throughout the day.

  • As the sun lowers the light passes through the supercoasmatic nucleus, signalling to the pineal gland to release melatonin into your bloodstream, thus making you sleepy and eventually leads to a good night sleep. 

  • However exposing your eyes and skin to blue light surpresses the buildup of melatonin, therefore it will hinder your ability to fall asleep. Also it has the potential to limit your body’s ability to perform autophogy (cell repair) as melatonin controls this mitochondrial DNA mechanism.

Supresses Melatonin

  • Increases blood glucose & insulin

  • Blue light destroys DHA in the cell membrane of mitochondria which leads to electron steal syndrome. This brings about short circuiting of your mitochondria and you can't turn light signals into electric signals

  • Increases your appetite by making you leptin resistant

  • Liberates vitamin A in aldehyde form leading to a dielectric collapse (Can't Decipher electromagnetic information)

  • Flicker from LEDs stresses the muscles of the eyes, overstimulates the sympathetic nervous system thus putting you in the flight of fright mechanism. Can also cause migraines & cognitive disfunction.

Other Effects

Diagram showing the body's biological clocks, including the brain's light clock, brown adipose tissue clock, muscle clock, liver clock, gut clock, pancreatic clock, and white adipose tissue clock, each with functions related to metabolism and energy regulation.

How we can block blue light

#2: Wear Blue light blocking glasses

By wearing blue light blocking glasses you can protect your eyes when looking at screens during the day time and night time. During the day you should wear the yellow lenses and during the night time you should wear the red lenses.

Blue light blocking glasses can be purchased from the following websites:

#1: Replacing LED lights with healthier lights

  • Installing full spectrum lights

  • Installing blue light blocking lights

  • Having candles at night time

Close-up of a woman with clear glasses smiling near a swimming pool with greenery in the background.

#3: Replace laptop with Daylight Computer

Daylight computer has released a new tablet that has removed the blue light from the hardware and now uses red light In the screen. They also have a red light tablet for kids now too.

A vintage computer setup with a monitor, keyboard, and a white mobile device, with text that says 'The computer, de-invented.' in a dimly lit environment. The logo of Daylight Computer Company is in the bottom right corner.

#4: Shield screens from blue-light

Blue light from screen can be reduced by putting a blue light blocking glass or plastic over it or by installing a red light filter on your screens.

Blue light filter apps that you can use:

Blue light blocking glass & Plastics can be purchased from the following sites:

Research:

Sources about blue light & its interaction with the human body

  1. Melatonin and insulin are solar metronomes

  2. Hypoxia #4: Red Light, Blue Light, 1.2.3

  3. Quantum Biology #12: Do We need DNA to tell time

Studies about artificial lights effects on Circadian rhythms & Melatonin

  1. Effects of light on human circadian rhythms sleep and mood

  2. Impact of daytime light exposure on sleep and mood in office workers

  3. Impact of windows and daylight exposure on overall health and sleep quality of office wworkers.

    • Boubekri, M., Cheung, I. N., Reid, K. J., Wang, C. H., & Zee, P. C. (2020). Impact of windows and daylight exposure on overall health and sleep quality of office workers: A case-control pilot study. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 16(2), 203–209.

    • https://jcsm.aasm.org/doi/10.5664/jcsm.7580

  4. Melatonin and insulin are solar metronomes

  5. J. K. Phillips, A, Vidafar, P & Burns, A 2019, ‘High sensitivity and interindividual variability in the response of the human circadian system to evening light', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,Vol. 116 | No. 24 June 11, 2019

  6. Association between light at night, melatonin secretion, sleep deprivation, and the internal clock: Health impacts and mechanisms of circadian disruption

  7. Effects of Light on Cognitive Brain Responses Depend on Circadian Phase and Sleep Homeostasis

  8. Evening light exposure to computer screens disrupts human sleep, biological rhythms, and attention abilities

    • A. Green, M. Cohen-Zion, A. Haim & Y. Dagan

      Pages 855-865 | Received 15 Mar 2017, Accepted 26 Apr 2017, Published online: 26 May 2017

  9. Recommendations for daytime, evening, and nighttime indoor light exposure to best support physiology, sleep, and wakefulness in healthy adults

Studies on effect of LED lights flicker

  1. Potential Biological and Ecological Effects of Flickering Artificial Light

  2. Influence of Light Emitting Diode-Derived Blue Light Overexposure on Mouse Ocular Surface

Studies relating to increased insulin & Blood glucose

  1. Effects of Cell Phone Radiofrequency Signal Exposure on Brain Glucose Metabolism

    • Nora D Volkow, Dardo Tomasi, Gene-Jack Wang, Paul Vaska, Joanna S Fowler, Frank Telang, Dave Alexoff, Jean Logan, Christopher Wong.

    • JAMA. 2011 Feb 23;305(8):808-13. doi: 10.1001/jama.2011.186. PMID: 21343580; PMCID: PMC3184892.

    • https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3184892/

  2. Artificial Light at Night and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

  3. Morning and Evening Blue-Enriched Light Exposure Alters Metabolic Function in Normal Weight Adults

I'm not your average electrician. I've been researching how light effects the human body for years now and have been assuring it aligns to science. All the studies can be seen below.