If you use tech a lot then it can be easy to stuff up your sleep patterns, but if you attend a regular church service on Sunday mornings then keeping a regular sleeping pattern is vitally import (In my opinion it’s pretty important even if you don’t attend a Sunday morning service as having a regular waking up time is much better for you than rapid changes and regular lie ins but that’s up to you.)
Why does tech ruin your sleep pattern?
Why Tech Ruins Your Sleep Pattern
Did you know that the light that is emitted from computer screens has a blueish tint to it so that it emulates day light. It makes sense doesn’t it, you use a computer during the day (mostly) so it should give off a light that is like daylight.
This frequency set of light makes your brain stay awake. Here’s the basics of the science. When your eyes sees natural light (with high amounts of blue light in the 460-480nm range) it stops the release of a chemical that is used to regulate your sleep patterns (called Melatonin). So as the sun goes down and the natural light changes quality your body produces more Melatonin and this encourages your body to go to sleep.
Before artificial lights, this was vital so that people were asleep when there wasn’t enough light around and it was more dangerous to be out and about and active.
The problem with artificial lights are that they don’t really mimic natural light well, they’re getting better and you can pick up “natural” light bulbs that try to mimic day light more, but the net effect is that these lights kind of stimulate our brain and cause it to produce Melatonin, but not really. So if you work in an office space with only artificial light you can end up feeling very tired, and if you use a computer all night you can end up feeling tried but not being able to get to sleep.
Luckily, there are a couple of apps that make your computer emit a more natural form of light for the time of day to help your brain adjust to the time and keep a more natural sleep pattern. They aren’t perfect, there is still the content stimulation and you might want to consider using natural light bulbs during the day and a filter on your light bulbs at night. However, a little improvement is better than no improvement.
F.Lux
This is a cross platform application that will work for Windows, Linux, Mac and iOS devices. Currently there is no Android version (Don’t worry there are other options bellow).
It registers your location globally and uses the times of sunrise and sunset to activate a color filter. With the filter on a redder light is emitted lacking the stimulating blue light.
During regular daylight, the filter is off so the standard computer color comes through. I’ve used this app for a while now and though it was strange at first it is now incredible natural to see both a red and blue tint to my screen.
Twilight
No not the vampire teen film, this is an app for an Android device. It also applies a color filter when the sun goes down but unlike F.lux it slowly applies the filter.
It also is more adjustable with controls for the intensity and color level yet remains affected by the sun’s pattern in your location OR manual options (in case you are traveling and don’t want to adjust). It’s also free.
Lux
No this isn’t linked to F.Lux but one probably influenced the other. Lux comes in a free and premium form that adds in some extra features.
Lux also adds in brightness features, allowing you to adjust the light settings for different times of the day and different light settings (so you won’t get caught out walking outside on a bright day.)
I came across F.lux from a chance conversation about disrupted sleep patterns and didn’t really think that I had too disrupted sleep (though I knew I did stay up late writing sometimes) I decided to install these apps as an experiment and the results were amazing. My eyes no longer felt so heavy when I used a computer after dark and I found I could drift off to sleep quicker when I went to bed. I still needed to keep a screen buffer, but that was more from the mental stimulation than the visual from the screen.
I really recommend trying these apps out, they might seem strange at first, but they will make a difference.
[Photo Credit: Kristen Leah via Compfight cc]
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