low blue light glasses

[SleepingUgly]

Has anyone ever tried a pair of glasses that purports to block blue light, such as these:

https://www.lowbluelights.com/products.asp

If so, what effect did it have?

[LoQ]

If so, what effect did it have?

I no longer have to worry about those lights on the Respironics machine disturbing my sleep.

[base2balls]

I have a pair of the wrap around type of sunglasses that do block out blue light. Only I did not know it until Christmas before last when my sister in Indiana was here for the holidays and I wore those at night as well as in the day time. I didn't notice the line of my bifocals when I had the wrap aounds on. So I wore the wrap arounds all the time when I went out. Any whoo we were out driving around looking at Christmas lights and there was a house the was all decked out in lights of all colors and I had the wrap arounds on and I said how pretty the house was and all and then I took off the wrap arounds and saw the blue lights! I said wait a minute,, Both of my sisters asked what's wrong and I looked at those blue lights and then put the wrap arounds back on and I could not see any blue lights at all with them on. Took them off again and said hey these things block out blue light! So each one of my sisters tried them on to see what I was talking about. It was pretty cool, but I bet I missed a lot of pretty lights because I could not see the blue lights with those wrap arounds on. Holy cow! Well it was fun, but now I have new glassses with out the line on the bifocals and I don't wear the wrap arounds that much any more, but do when my eyes are bothering me. I have a pair of clip ons for my glasses now, but I don't know if they block out the blue lights or not. Have a great night, Huggies, Fay

[LoQ]

OK, more seriously, here is what appears to be a fairly objective review:
http://www.shanspirations.org/?p=88


Note that she suggests an alternative--she prefers fluorescent low-blue-light bulbs.


Here's another positive review, but it was hard to tell if this one might be a paid review:
http://www.helium.com/items/1565962-natural-sleep-aids

She liked the glasses quite a bit.


I note that both reviewers found them effective.


Sorry I was such a pill, and I hope that didn't prevent people who have tried the product from helping you, but it does make me wonder why a company producing sleep therapy equipment would put blue lights on their machines.

[BlackSpinner]

My father has had pink glasses since the 60's to help him deal with fluorescent lights which were giving him massive headaches. I am not sure why you want to block blue
ETA: should have read the links - don't like the idea of wearing glasses - using low blue light bulbs seems much more logical.

However it makes doing crafts in the evening nearly impossible as the colours would shift - I have spent money on "daylight" bulbs in order to work in the evenings, especially living in the north - our days are already getting short.

[LoQ]

I am not sure why you want to block blue

Because blue light blocks the production of melatonin. I presume that is why SU wants it, but we'll let her say otherwise, if she desires.


That's interesting about your dad using pink glasses to help with headaches.

[SleepingUgly]

Because blue light blocks the production of melatonin. I presume that is why SU wants it, but we'll let her say otherwise, if she desires.

Yes, I want to see if it will help me go to bed earlier and get up earlier.

[LoQ]

OK, SU, I may finally be of some use to you in this thread. It turns out that people with macular degeneration may benefit from blocking blue light, which is thought to damage retinal tissue (maybe). Anyway, if you do a search on "NOIR glasses" you'll find something like this:
noir glasses

If you click on some of these, you'll see that they (the amber/yellow/orange) block 100% of blue light (the plum ones block 96%). I particularly liked this one, both because it was cheap, and because it seems to cover light coming in from any direction:
http://www.thelowvisioncenter.com/noiryellow.html
It has less UV protection than some of the others, but I am proposing to wear them indoors at night where UV protection might not be terribly important.

I believe the original link you had shows glasses that cost significantly more not because they are better at blocking blue light but because they are significantly more stylish, but that's a matter of guess, not fact.

I may just get some of these and see if they help.

[SleepingUgly]

Wow, those are really ugly LoQ.

[LoQ]

Wow, those are really ugly LoQ.

No kidding. Fortunately, no one would see me in them.

[SleepingUgly]

Not to say blocking blue light is a sham for those into that... although it does sound a little suspect to me... I mean seriously, do you have like 1000-watt Metal Halide HID bulbs in your living room / bedroom?

Even the light of the computer is bad, and realistically, I'm not giving up the computer in the evenings.

[Muse-Inc]

It's all electronics...tv, monitors, laptops, notebooks, cell phones, PDAs, etcetera. US keep us posted if this really helps. I discussed it at the Atlanta Meetup 2 sessions ago...haven't gotten any of these but I'm exposed to this close to bedtime and keep wondering if they'd reduce my sleep issues.

[SleepingUgly]

OK, so I bought a pair. First night so far is not going well. I got a headache and queasiness. I'll try again tomorrow in case it's confounded by my poor sleep last night.

[Linus]

How about outfitting an area with high pressure sodium lights? The light is almost absent of blue yet contain enough color as to not make it hard to see. Stay away from low pressure sodium lights because they are highly monochomatic -- they give off a very narrow band of light.

For a small amount of money, one can obtain a lower wattage fixture and operate in an environment devoid of blue light. The cost to operatate it is low (high Illuminance per watt). I am not sure there is enough scientific research to show that absence of the blue part of the spectrum will make someone sleepy.

[SleepingUgly]

Well, more than just to get sleepy, I'm trying to advance my circadian rhythms... (You can see how well it's working so far...)