Blue light, as you probably have heard, comes naturally from the environment, comes from the sun. But it also comes from staring at screens, or fluorescent lights overhead, or anywhere else in your household. The problem with this blue light is that it really can disrupt our circadian rhythm.
Now, our circadian rhythm is the body’s natural biological clock. One of the problems with this is not only causing strain on the eyes, but it also disrupts sleep patterns. And if you read studies, most people, especially in the U.S., have horrible sleep patterns. We don’t get the recommended seven, eight, nine hours of sleep a day. To top that off, if you’re an entrepreneur listening to this like I am, chances are your average is closer to four or five hours, and that just adds up.
To top it off even more, according to the Harvard Medical Journal, having blue light can also contribute to the causation of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and even obesity. Obviously, this is something that we want to avoid. But, if you’re like me, I have three screens going right now. Oftentimes, my cell phone will be going. Because I practice the Author of Your Own Story lifestyle, I’m constantly traveling, exploring new things. But oftentimes, I have a screen to check in.
Now, there are some things that you can do. Of course, if you own an iPhone or an iPad, there’s actual settings on there that you can set. It’s called night shift. Unless I’m watching a movie, or something else, on my iPhone, I have no need to have that extra blue light. That actually helps. On my computers, all my computers, I use a software program called F.lux. F. L-U-X. What this does is actually times my day, through normal circadian rhythms, depending on the time zone that I’m in. So when I’m traveling, if I’m out of the country in Columbia, or if I’m in Europe, or even just across the states, it knows the time zone and adjusts the blue light levels to match the natural circadian rhythms for that time zone. And of course, I can adjust those as well.
To take it a step further, I also often wear these blue blocker glasses. Now, these ones, if you’re watching me on YouTube, you know how ridiculous these look. If you’re listening to this on the phone, just imagine somebody in wood shop class. But they have a blue blocking lens. Because I’m by the computer so often, I’ll actually wear something a little bit less evasive. So these ones, I got on Amazon. I’m wearing a pair of blue blocking glasses, that I got on Amazon for about five dollars. They’re a little bit more attractive. I wouldn’t say a lot more attractive, but a little bit. And these allow me to work longer hours, where I’m staring at a screen.
Perhaps I have a big project that I’m launching. We have our passion project that we’re launching at Author of Your Own Story, called Author of Your Own Story University. And what this requires is me to work with people from around the world in different time zones. And when I’m working late at night, my passion, my energy takes hold of me, and I want to work a little later, I’ll often wear these glasses, combined with F.lux software running in the background. I find that this reduces my eye strain.
Also, I also try to move away from the computer every hour. I have an alarm set on my phone, so every 50 minutes on every hour, it goes off. I walk around. I actually do some exercises, get my body moving, get the blood flowing, but I’ll also have these blue blocking glasses on, and this reduces the total eye strain I have, and also helps mitigate, hopefully, some of these health problems that I just referred to.
So, my question to you would be, how often are you really checking screens?
Now, if you have an eight to five job, or maybe if you’re just at home, if you’re a stay at home mom, or you’re a busy executive like I am, just looking at your cell phone becomes habitual for a lot of us. How can you reduce this blue light, and really add that extra value to your sleep patterns? Try a set of blue blocking glasses, or try a program like F.lux, and hopefully, this will help you reduce your eye strain, so you can keep going, and when your energy’s flowing, produce great results.
That’s it for me today. Stay tuned for Author of Your Own Story University, launching in just a couple of months. We’ll be bringing you tons of quality information and material every single month.
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