Wow! Blue light fends off drowsiness?
Hey, I didn’t know this until just now: Apparently short-wavelength light — a fancy way of saying “blue light” — helps people stop being drowsy in the middle of the night! There’s an article about this here — apparently the finding was in the journal Sleep this last February.
From the article:
“Light exposure to this system, particularly blue light, directly reduces sleepiness,” said Steven Lockley of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “Subjects exposed to blue light were able to sustain a high level of alertness during the night when people usually feel most sleepy, and these results suggest that light may be a powerful countermeasure for the negative effects of fatigue for people who work at night.”
If you try a blue light, make sure to let me know if it works!
-PD
1 comment
Not sure if this fits or not but I have an uplighter with a blue shade, so that even with a white bulb the light has a blue tint. When I was having trouble with my evening nap, due to waking in a dark room and then immediately going into a lit one, I tried leaving the uplighter on (since I wear a sleep mask anyway). It’s so far worked wonderfully, so now that I’ve read this I wonder if it’s simply the fact I’m waking into light, or more specifically due to the blue shade. Interesting…
I’ll have to experiment with using a conventional blue light. It’s a great excuse to go to Ikea if nothing else :p