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New research says blue light before bed may not be harmful
Previous research warned us not to expose ourselves to blue light from TV and electronics an hour before bed. It can prevent the brain from releasing the melatonin that is believed to help us fall asleep.
But a new study says that may not be the case for everyone. KERA's Sam Baker spoke to Dr. Vikas Jaina sleep specialist in Plano and medical director of the Pediatric Sleep Institute, affiliated with Texas Health.
The new research finds that while bright light exposure does have some effect on melatonin suppression, it does not appear that bright light exposure has a significant effect on a person's ability to fall asleep.
For example, they looked at teens playing games and watching videos on their iPads on a bright white screen, a dim white screen, or a bright white screen with a blue light filter. What they found is that the teens using the bright screen took about 3.3 minutes longer to fall asleep than those using the dim screen. So it didn't seem like there was a significant difference in the timing of falling asleep.
The main message from the research was that we are all different and you can't just apply one rule or a universal recommendation for the 30 minutes to an hour that we previously gave.
I wonder though, is it just the blue light or the type of content you watch before bed?
That was one of the things that came up in the article. When you're watching passive content, it can be very different than when you're watching really engaging content, because there can be a heightened sense of excitement depending on the content that's being created.
Since you work with children, what advice would you give them and their parents about dealing with blue light?
The first thing I generally recommend is to make sure we get enough sleep at night. If you don't take that first step, a lot of other things may not be that helpful.
So, like making sure that we have some rules around bedtime, rules around technology use around bedtime. I think it's still helpful to, you know, try to minimize exposure to bright light, particularly blue light, in the evening.
But if you find that it's a way to relax, or it can help the child reduce their anxiety in the evening or around bedtime, it can still be a useful tool. We have to make sure that when we use that tool, we're also tracking the impact in both directions.
So the other helpful tip for parents is, whether you choose to use blue light or eliminate it, I would consider potentially a two week period with each and see how your child does. Does it seem to have an impact in some way, or no impact at all? Because that can help you decide whether it's something that you want to continue to incorporate into your child's bedtime routine.
What's the best way to experiment at home and see what works best for you?
In general, a concept that I try to teach a lot of my patients is that we never want to teach our brains how to be awake in bed. If you’re doing things in the middle of the night that are very stimulating, that’s what tends to develop insomnia and perpetuate insomnia.
So what we want to try to do is really teach ourselves how to relax in the evening and how to be relaxed during our sleep period. Again, I'm not against the use of watching TV in the evening, but I usually advise my patients not to do that in bed. Go somewhere else so that we don't teach our brains how to be awake in bed.
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