alt.hn

4/8/2026 at 6:49:39 PM

The blue light from your phone isn't ruining your sleep

 https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260407-the-blue-light-from-your-phone-isnt-ruining-your-sleep

by devonnull

4/8/2026 at 7:34:30 PM

Fun fact: After sunset, the color temperature from moonlight is a neutral 4000K.

The obsession with blue light came out of a hypothesis based on an analysis of proteins found in the eye, not on actual research of their effect. Further research showed that mammals circadian rhythms are likely more affected by yellow light, than blue light: https://www.manchester.ac.uk/about/news/researchers-discover...

by dlcarrier

4/8/2026 at 6:52:36 PM

The lights that are used in experiments where you perturb people's circadian rhythm a. la The Geometry of Biological Time

https://lab.rockefeller.edu/cohenje/assets/file/098CohenBook... (review)

are really bright, as our the lights used for treating SAD. I always thought the fear over screens was the kind of bogus thing people wanted to believe in.

by PaulHoule

4/8/2026 at 7:59:31 PM

I sleep badly when I try really hard to sleep and I sleep well when I don’t.

I haven’t found anything else that influences it.

by konschubert

4/8/2026 at 7:34:02 PM

Orange light synced with the daybreak and sunrise made my life better.

So something is odd with this scientific research. Any explanations?

by iFire

4/8/2026 at 7:58:47 PM

The way, that the linked “mixed” research showed positive effects. Although “little effect”, but that can easily mean that for some it has great effect, for others, nothing. Also, this is still not definitive, research count is unfortunately low.

Any real doctor would tell you, that if it works for you, keep the habit. We are different, and there are outliers in everything.

by ruszki

4/8/2026 at 7:39:35 PM

Exposure to lots of light, synced with the daybreak, causing an improvement in your life is perfectly consistent with pretty much every study out there. The conflicted research the article linked to is whether or not the color of dim lights in the evening has an effect.

by dlcarrier

4/8/2026 at 7:46:42 PM

Ah! So it's the total light output of the light not the specific color. So it means I can use regular colours but dimmer. That would make late night color editing better.

by iFire

4/8/2026 at 7:41:18 PM

So it's saying orange light but really really bright makes a difference?

That's ok.

I usually have really dim orange lights...

Edit: Or was it the contrapositive..

by iFire

4/8/2026 at 7:59:45 PM

Here's the ELI5 version:

What it's saying is that the color of light doesn't make a difference, especially if the light is dim. There was research into the effects of the color of dim light and separate research into the effects of bright light during different times of the day.

The research into bright light found that lots of it in the morning was really beneficial, and bright light late into the night is harmful. The statistics in the research showed it was very accurate, and the article doesn't doubt it.

The other research, into the effects of the color of dim light found that dim blue light late at night was harmful, but dim yellow light wasn't, although the statistics on this research didn't show a very strong effect. The article discusses some follow-up research that shows there is likely was no effect at all.

The takeaway is that it's still important to get lots of light in the morning, and not too much light late at night, but it's not worth worrying about what color the light is.

by dlcarrier