Until recently, the sun was the only real source of lighting and people spent their evenings in (relative) darkness. Now, in much of the world, evenings and nights are very illuminated.
But there's a dark side to all this light. At night, light throws the body's biological clock - your circadian rhythm - out of sync and sleep suffers. Research also shows that it may contribute to the causation of depression, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and cancer
[1].
White light consists of all colours of the rainbow. Blue light boosts attention, reaction times, and mood and is therefore the most disruptive at night. And the proliferation of electronics with screens, as well as energy-efficient lighting, is increasing our exposure to blue wavelengths, especially after sundown.
Especialy exposure to blue light suppresses the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that influences circadian rhythms. Thus, blue light interferes with your sleep and LED's produce more blue light than old-fashioned light bulbs.
Your computer screen emits large amounts of blue light. Working long and late hours behind your screen means that your sleep may suffer badly. In a perfect world, you’d start to avoid 'blue-enriched' light from screens four hours before bedtime.
So, what can be done about this problem. Some say you might want to start wearing blue-light-filtering glasses, but these aren't very practical.
Windows 10 has a new feature called 'Night Light' that allows you to filter out blue light from your screen during the hours you determine.
How to eliminate blue light with Windows 10 Night Light
- Open the Start Menu.
- Click the gear icon to bring up the Settings Menu.
- Choose System.
- Select Display.
- Toggle the Night light switch to On.
- Click Night light settings to adjust the level of blue displayed (or determine the time for Night Light to activate automatically).
[1] Hatori et al: Global rise of potential health hazards caused by blue light-induced circadian disruption in modern aging societies in Aging and mechanisms of disease – 2017
