Negative effects of blue lights can be reversed in children: study

With the encroachment of technology in people’s lives, parents have started being more careful about their children spending time in front of the TV and mobile devices. It’s a well-known fact that the blue light these devices emit isn’t good for one’s health. A recent study decided to study this out in detail.
The study found out that limiting the exposure to blue light in the evening for just one week helped teenagers improve their sleep quality, reduce symptoms of fatigue, lack of concentration and bad mood.
Studies in the past have said that too much exposure to evening light, particularly blue light emitted from screens, laptops, tv screens, mobile phones can affect the brain's clock and the production of the sleep hormone melatonin, resulting in disrupted sleep time and quality.
With lack of sleep comes an immediate symptom of tiredness and poor concentration. But that’s not all. It also increases the risk of more serious long terms issues, like obesity, diabetes and heart diseases. Other studies say that this sleep deprivation affects children and adolescents more than adults. But no studies have fully investigated how real-life exposure is affecting sleep in adolescents at home and whether it can be reversed.
he team conducted a randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of blocking blue light with glasses and no screen time during the evening on the sleep pattern of 25 frequent users.
Both blocking blue light with glasses and screen abstinence resulted in sleep onset and wake up times occurring 20 minutes earlier, and a reduction in reported symptoms of sleep loss in participants, after just one week.
"Adolescents increasingly spend more time on devices with screens and sleep complaints are frequent in this age group," said Dirk Jan Stenvers from the Amsterdam UMC.
"Here we show very simply that these sleep complaints can be easily reversed by minimizing evening screen use or exposure to blue light," Stenvers said.
"Based on our data, it is likely that adolescent sleep complaints and delayed sleep onset are at least partly mediated by blue light from screens," he said.