Building on existing evidence, vision researchers have found that limiting exposure to blue light after sunset increases the quality and length of sleep. The research is being presented at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) this week in Seattle, Wash.
Adult subjects wore blue-light blocking glasses from sunset to bedtime. After two weeks, subjects were sleeping 22 minutes longer than they were before the experiment. Sleep quality, subjectively evaluated via survey, also showed significant improvement.
Blue light is believed to interfere with the circadian rhythm, which is synchronized to the 24-hour day/night cycle.
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