Future Now | Don't Lose Sleep Over That Light

<p><em>Light from digital devices trick the brain into thinking it isn’t really nighttime at all, and this disrupts the natural sleep-wake cycle, in the long term, impacting sleep architecture</em><br><br>One thing’s for sure: I’m in trouble. My eyes are barely open in the morning when I’m squinting at my phone, checking out mail, reading the news, canning messages and dismissing the notifications that plague my life. And late in the night, my phone slips out of my hand to one side as I reluctantly stop reading my ebook. Let’s not count the hours in between because, in brief, they amount to most of the day.<br><br>Unsurprising then that I should find I suffer from eye strain and dryness. But that’s not all. The “blue light” from screens can and does harm the eyes.<br>Blue light apparently reaches deep into the eye and causes damage to the retina maybe even speeding up age-related macular degeneration.<br><br>That’s if lack of sleep doesn’t kill you first. Enough studies now show that screen-staring, specially close to bedtime, will affect the quality of sleep you get. The first thing you could do is to blink more. In fact there are even apps that remind you to look away from the screen and take a break. There’s the famous 20-20-20 format where you look away every 20 minutes at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. It sounds easy enough, but we soon tire of this and try ever persuading kids to look away from their screens for a break – they don’t even consciously experience the strain and yet, the damage to their eyes so early in life is frightening. Forget games, they sometimes have to do homework online.<br>&nbsp;</p><table style="width: 200px;" border="1" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="1" align="right"><tbody><tr><td><img alt="" src="http://bw-image.s3.amazonaws.com/mala-bhargava-mdm.jpg" style="width: 200px; height: 200px; margin: 1px; float: right;"></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Mala Bhargava</strong></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Nor can one afford to ignore the impact of blue light on REM sleep. You may not feel it over a day or two, but consistent depletion of this most important phase of sleep in turn affects overall health. Light from digital devices trick the brain into thinking it isn’t really nighttime at all, and this disrupts the natural sleep-wake cycle, in the long term, impacting sleep architecture. A study by the AMA (American Medical Association) in 2012 recognized that exposure to blue light at night can disrupt sleep and exacerbate sleep disorders, specially in children and adolescents. Dim red lighting in the room is recommended to counteract the blue light somewhat.<br><br>One would think manufacturers of electronic equipment would do something about it, but while enough work goes into protecting the screen, little or nothing is done to protect the user. Dhruvin Patel, optometry student, decided he should change this and invented a screen protector which can block up to 50 percent of the blue light. His product, Ocushield, actually helps reduce eyestrain and get better sleep. Patel developed Ocushield while he was at City University in the UK, winning a modest sum of funding for the product after a competition and later at Vision Express.<br><br>From January this year, Ocushield is available for sale online. It’s manufactured in Hong Kong from where it’s quality controlled and sent out to distributors. It’s a film that’s a cut out and it fits onto a screen. “You don’t really notice a difference in coloration,” says Patel, “There’s no change in image clarity. “ Currently, Patel is getting Ocushield to hospitals and doctors, which he believes will establish the credibility of the product. The next step will be to get Ocushield to corporate and mobile companies. In the near future, if mobile makers take it up, we could look forward to at least some reduction in the damage to our eyes and claim back some of that sleep lost to digital devices. Meanwhile, if you can’t wait, head to http://ocushield.com.</p>