When you have trouble sleeping, the go-to response is to grab your smartphone or work on your laptop. Unfortunately, this only delays your sleep. You must have heard about studies that linked digital devices with disrupting people’s sleeping patterns. But there is another problem—you’re putting a considerable amount of strain on your eyes. It’s called a digital eye strain.
But what is the Science Behind it?
All monitors emit blue light, which is considered a visible light spectrum. Your computer screen and smartphone emit multiple electromagnetic particles with varying wavelengths. When you say visible light, you’re referring to the wavelength within the 400-700 nanometer range.
There are other colours in the visible light spectrum, and these include violet, green, indigo, red, yellow, and orange.
Blue light, however, has a narrow wavelength, which means it is emitting a higher volume of energy. Extended exposure can result in digital eye strain. You can buy and wear anti-reflective glasses and sunglasses that will help reduce the amount of eyestrain and protect your vision.
Symptoms of Digital Eye Strain
An ABC report revealed that Australians are spending as much as seven hours per day hooked on their digital screens. These include smartphones, computers, consoles, and mobile gaming devices. The top websites they are visiting, meanwhile, are Facebook, eBay, YouTube, and Tumblr (where they spend an average of eight minutes each day).
If you experience the following symptoms, you might be suffering from digital eye strain:
- Watery eyes
- Blurred vision
- Double vision
- Sensitivity to light
- Headache
- Sore neck and shoulders
- Having trouble focusing
- Itchy or burning eyes
Those symptoms are your body’s way of telling you that you need to rest your eyes.
AR Glasses Can Help You Sleep
Wearing anti-glare glasses will help eliminate blue light, but there’s also has an added benefit.
Did you know, for example, that wearing anti-reflective spectacles will help you sleep better?
The 2016 Sleep Health Survey of Australian Adults by the Sleep Health Foundation revealed that 33-45% of Australians suffer from sleep disorders. About 1 in 5 adults have full-blown insomnia, while about 8% suffer from sleep apnea, a medical condition linked to several deaths. The average sleeping time for Australian is roughly seven hours. However, 12% of the population is sleeping less than six hours.
Anti-reflective technology is relatively new and there are new studies coming out now and then. Early research, however, is promising. For instance, if you wear AR glasses a few hours before you turn in for bed, the eyewear will drastically improve their sleep quality.
So when you can’t sleep, most people think that their gadgets are to blame. While that is partly true, nothing is ever that simple. When you need to finish a report at work or finish an essay for school, you have no choice but to stare at the screen for hours.
You can turn on the nighttime mode to help reduce the blue light on your smartphone. If you have been doing that without any significant changes, however, maybe it is time to buy AR glasses. You can visit an optometry practitioner to get the right glasses or sunglasses for you.
