Your computer screen can wreck your sleep...

Submitted by jet jaguar on Mon, 06/14/2010 - 20:23
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So there's this vague dose of evidence that suggests that blue light (e.g. the frequencies of light that make the sky blue) suppresses melatonin generation.  Melatonin being the hormone that zonks us when it's time for beddy byes. 

Screens like on a TV, a PC, an iPhone, whatever, give off doses of blue light too, and there's also some evidence (I honestly don't know how much) to say that if you're sitting in the dark and staring at something emitting blue light nice and close up your body thinks you shouldn't do any of that dumb sleep shit.

So I'm trying out a free programme called f.lux.  It runs in XP, Vista, OSX, and Linux.  Ace.

F.Lux screenshot

It's after dark here, so my screen is a mellow shade of peach.

That is all.

Comments

Submitted by jet jaguar on Mon, 06/14/2010 - 20:32.

Found an abstract for a study called Action spectrum for melatonin regulation in humans: evidence for a novel circadian photoreceptor, which looks pretty flash.

Submitted by stuart (not verified) on Tue, 07/13/2010 - 05:10.

I glanced over the paper... what's not apparent to me is how the effect is quantified at a day to day level, as opposed to researchers shining light on your eyes in the middle of the night. Does a bit of blue light from your laptop shave half an hour off the quantity of sleep you get? Two hours? Does it affect the quality of sleep? Is the influence on stopping people getting to sleep as strong as caffeine, or doing some mentally stimulating activity before bedtime? What about the effect of any number of other possible stimuli? Should I be more worried about fluoride in water?