ANTI-GLARE LENSES VS BLUE LIGHT FILTER LENSES

Now you’ve heard about the Blue Light radiation, you have heard the science behind it, but let’s do a quick recap.

Visible light is electromagnetic radiation, just like any other forms of radiation, the closer you get to the source, the stronger the radiation. The colors of the visible light spectrum closest to the blue-violet side called Blue Light are of the highest energy. This Blue Light radiation is bad for your eyes and overall health. That’s why you need to keep a generous working distance to decrease your chances of blue light exposure. But unfortunately we are exposed to more and more forms of blue light radiation day by day.

So how could we protect our eyes from Blue Light exposure? The easiest solution is to wear a pair of glasses with special lenses which blocks Blue Light from reaching your eyes. Most of the lenses available in the market are anti-glare or anti – reflective. This alone does not protect our eyes from harmful blue light.

Anti-Glare / Anti – Reflective Lenses

Anti-Glare / Anti – Reflective Lenses are lenses with special anti-reflective coating (also called "AR coating" ) applied to the surface of lenses and other optical elements to reduce reflection. An AR Coated lens improves vision, reduces eye strain and makes your eyeglasses look more attractive with fewer distractions. It’s great for night driving also.

But does it really block the harmful blue light? The answer is NO. Normal AR coated lenses DOES NOT block the harmful blue light. AR coating virtually eliminate reflections from the front and back surfaces of your eyeglass lenses. With reflections gone, more light passes through your lenses to your eyes. More light means more blue light also. So, what’s the solution?

Blue Light Filter Coated Lenses

The good news is that, scientists have created an affordable coating for eyeglasses that helps block blue light. Ophthalmic  lenses with a special coating designed to reflect and cut high energy blue light penetration are now available in the market. This type of lens coating is referred to as a blue light filter coating. These lenses use a special coating to reflect a portion of the blue light emitted by digital devices and artificial light. This coating also incorporates scratch resistant and anti-glare benefits, giving you clearer vision while using digital devices.

All thanks to these latest blue light filter coatings, the harmful portion of blue light is cut while allowing the good portion of blue light to pass through. Due to the reduced amount of blue light entering the eyes, contrasts are improved by reducing screen brightness, flickering and eye fatigue to provide a strain-free visual experience while providing the most complete protection. Latest blue-light blocking lenses are clear lenses. Unlike the yellow-tinted blue blockers commonly used as computer glasses, these clear blue blockers do not distort colors.

It is important for you to maintain your eye health. Do consider blue blocking lenses for your next pair of eye glasses. By wearing blue blocking filter coated lenses, you experience less eye strain, headaches, and eye fatigue. It will also protect your circadian rhythms and ultimately your health.

How to Protect Our Eyes from Blue Light?

The world can be a dangerous place, especially if viewed through the naked eye. Eye hazards resulting from artificial and natural sources of light are everywhere. We all know about the harmful effects of Ultra Violet radiation. Now a new ocular threat has emerged in the form of High Energy Visible (HEV) light or Blue light. Most of us spend all of our work and free time in front of one form of digital device like TVs, Computers, Mobiles, Tablets etc. All these electronics emits dangerous blue light, which negatively impacts not only your vision but also your overall health. Blue light radiation could cause a variety of health issues from sleep macular degeneration to sleep disorders and even cancer.

The effects of blue light are often cumulative and can lead to permanent eye damage like macular degeneration. Children and old age people, people undergone cataract surgery etc are more at risk when it comes to the negative effects of blue light exposure. The problem for children is that their eyes are still developing, and they don't yet have the protective pigments in their eyes to help filter out some of this harmful blue light. But it doesn’t matter how old you are or how good your eye sight is, all of that screen time isn’t good for you. Blue light exposure has also been linked to digital eye strain, that discomfort you feel in your eyes after staring at a digital screen for two or more hours.

So how could we possibly protect our eyes from blue light exposure?

In this era, it’s impossible for us cut down all those screen time completely. But you could reduce the effects of harmful blue light if you follow some simple steps. Don’t worry. The sky is not falling. You have resources to help reduce your blue light exposure.

 

Minimize the Exposure

Whatever you try, you cannot ward off all those blue light rays completely. But you could reduce the exposure. You should definitely try to avoid exposing yourself to blue light at least 2-3 hours before bed, as it disrupts your circadian rhythm and affects your sleep.

 

Protective Eyewear and Lenses

 

The use of protective eyewear helps to shield your eyes against the harmful effects of blue light. For indoors, in low light or at night, protective ophthalmic lenses with a special coating designed to reflect and cut high energy blue light penetration are available. This type of lens coating is referred to as a blue light filter coating.  Latest Blue Light Filter Coated lens available in the market filters out harmful UV and Blue-Violet light to improve contrast and alleviate eye fatigue at the same time allowing beneficial Blue-Turquoise light through for circadian rhythm regulation.

Sunglasses, which are specially tinted or polarized to absorb the HEV blue rays and Ultra Violet rays, are perfect for outdoors during the day.

Blink More

When we look at a screen, our blink rate drops significantly, and our eyes cannot cope with that resulting in dry eyes, eyes fatigue and head ache. The easiest way to address digital eye strain is to blink more. That might sound overly simple, but blinking helps to keep eyes lubricated.

Follow the 20-20-20 rule

This is the golden rule to reduce digital eye strain. Look away from your computer or screen every 20 minutes and focus on a distant object at least 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds.

 

Apps and programs for your digital devices

There are some programs or apps that filter out blue light from your digital devices and provide you with warmer tones of light. There are hundreds of them available in the market. Some of them are:

1.   Flux is a free software you can download onto your computer that changes the coloring of your display to adapt to the time of day.

2.   Apple Night Shift is an app that’s similar to Flux but for your iPhone and iPad.

3.   Twilight is similar to Night Shift, but it works in multiple platforms like android, Windows and iPhone.

Minor Tweaks

Many harmful effects of blue light and digital eye strain can be avoided by some minor adjustments to your devices and surroundings.

·         Reduce Glare

·         Clean your screen often

·         Dim surrounding lights

·         Adjust your screen to your eye level

·         Increase Text/Font size

Some of you feel all these a bit overboard. But by keeping in mind a few simple ways listed above, you could ensure your eyes last much longer than your devices. No matter your age, limiting your exposure to blue light and protecting your eyesight is important for your overall health and well being.

Effects of Blue Light on human health

Just imagine, you work in an office, doing lengthy shifts, spending more and more time staring into a digital screen like your computer monitor or a tablet, you come home dead tired, had dinner and after some bed time reading and spending some time in social media on your smart phones or tablets, you try to sleep. Have you ever felt you are not able to sleep right away, like sleep is being deprived of you? Or do you think your sleep is getting disturbed even if you fall asleep somehow? Have you ever wondered why it is like that? Even if you did that, chances are, you attribute that to the normal stress in your official or family life. If it’s any consolation, you are not alone, there are millions worldwide suffer  from disordered sleep or insomnia. But, what if I tell you, it’s all because of some light your digital screens emits? You might laugh it off, right?

Well, laughing is good.  “A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor’s book.” Says an Irish proverb. But don’t just laugh this off. Because this is true! Using electronic gadgets at night will ruin your sleep and increase your risk of death and disease. Scientists have found that visible light, especially at night could wreck havoc your biological clock or otherwise your circadian rhythm. Many researches points to that, night time light exposure suppresses the production of melatonin, the major hormone secreted by the pineal gland that controls your sleep and wake cycles.

Even though, all light at night is bad, it has been proved that short-wavelength or “blue” light is the most melatonin-suppressive. This is the type of light typically emitted by devices such as televisions, computer screens, tablets, E-readers and cell phones. Many studies have linked working the night shift and exposure to light at night to several types of cancer like breast prostrate etc. It could also impair your immune system function, and possibly lead to cardio metabolic consequences such as type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, heart diseases and increased risk for depression.  Because melatonin does far more than help us get sleepy – it’s also an antioxidant that appears to play a pivotal role in slowing the progression of diseases.

Apart from the melatonin suppression, continual extended screen time can impact your eyes in two major ways. The first and most common side effect is digital eye strain. Your eyes may feel dry, runny or tired, or maybe you get a headache. The second -- and more serious -- impact that can have on our eyes is eye damage from blue light exposure. Because blue light have the highest energy wavelength, it could penetrate all the way to the back of the eye, through the eyes' natural filters, and that's the problem. There are evidences that suggest the effects of blue light are cumulative and irreversible. Over exposure could lead to early onset of macular degeneration, which in extreme cases can cause near blindness.

In this digital era, a complete prevention from blue light exposure is next to impossible. But everyone needs to take precautions against the effects of blue light.  Whether we work in an office or play in the sun; spend hours staring at a computer screen or texting on our cell phones, we are all being exposed to blue light. Blue light is actually everywhere, the sun being the brightest source and we all require some of it during day hours to boost our energy and level of alertness. But over exposure due to proximity and exposure at night is what needs to be controlled. Some of the solutions include, computer programs and apps that manage the blue radiation from your computers and smart phones. Also there are special goggles and lenses with protective coatings to reduce the exposure. These types of blue-blocking eye-wear reduce the effects of blue light exposure. Because of its serious health hazards, reducing the effects of blue light and preventing its over exposure should be a top priority in anyone’s healthy lifestyle.

THE FACTS ABOUT BLUE LIGHT

We all know that light can be both harmful and beneficial for our vision as well as our overall health. Scientists have tested the impact of different wavelengths of light upon our health. The results are somewhat shocking!

Our eyes can detect only a tiny fraction of electromagnetic radiation called visible light.  The colours of the spectrum of white light are violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red (VIBGYOR). Of these, blue - violet light or blue light in general has a shorter wave length and produces a higher amount of energy and has the greatest impact on our health.

Blue light is actually everywhere and the main source being sun. Other sources include digital screens such as TVs, computers, laptops and smart phones and fluorescent and LED lightings. The widespread use of these equipments makes us being exposed to more and more sources of blue light and for longer periods of time.

Over time, over exposure to blue light could cause serious damage to your eyes and your overall health. Health risks include macular degeneration, cardio vascular diseases and even cancer. Night time exposure to blue light could disrupt our circadian rhythm or in other words reset our biological clock by suppressing the production of melatonin, a sleep hormone.

The funny thing is our eyes are not very good at blocking blue light. Our eyes’ natural filters blocks most of harmful ultra violet rays from reaching the retina. But it allows virtually all of visible blue light to pass through the cornea resulting in damage to the eyes.

Most of us spend more and more time staring at a digital screen. When you’re looking at digital screens that emit significant amount of high energy blue light, it could contribute to digital eyestrain. Digital eyestrain is relatively a new term used to describe conditions resulting from use of electronic gadgets. It’s a medical issue that can affect your overall productivity. Symptoms include blurry vision, difficulty focusing, dry and irritated eyes, headaches, neck and back pain etc.

Solutions to blue light hazard include use of protective eyewear and reduction in the exposure to blue light, especially at night.  Digital device users are advised to blink more often to keep the eyes maintain sufficient lubrication. Certain eye exercises like “20-20-20” rule also helps. People who use smart phones and tablets are recommended to install blue light filter apps in their gadgets and customize it to their sleeping schedules so that it won’t disrupt their circadian rhythm. 

In this digital era, a complete abstinence from blue light exposure is more or less impossible. But some of the recommended solutions helps you maintain a good eye health and could manage your circadian rhythm.