Dr. King: Mahjong coming up. Oh.
Dr. Cha: Whoa. So actually, I was on Facebook Marketplace earlier this week. Some lady was getting ready for automatic mahjong table because she. I guess she was moving. She gave it to someone else. I what is that?
Dr. King: Do you mind?
Dr. Cha: Hello, ma’am. All over for a game?
Dr. King: I’ve only played twice. Yeah. Oh, hi. Welcome to Days of Our Eyes. I’m doctor King. This is Doctor Cha, who’s a little kind of absorbed in something here right now.
Dr. Cha: Okay. I’m done.
Dr. King: Okay. Today we’re going to be talking about blue light. Is it harmful or isn’t it? Stay tuned.
Dr. King: What is blue light? I mean, is it just blue light? Yeah.
Dr. Cha: So blue light. Right? When we think of light, it’s part of is I’ll get a little nerdy. Right? It’s electromagnetic spectrum, right? Radio waves, microwaves, UV rays. Right. These are. And you know, the light that we used to see these are all in the electromagnetic spectrum. Blue light exists in one side of what we were able to see.
Dr. Cha: Humans are only able to see what’s in the visible light spectrum around. I want to say like, 400 nanometers. Is that right? We only see of.
Dr. King: We promise you.
Dr. Cha: We only see a very small sliver of. What’s the electromagnetic spectrum? Excuse me. So blue light is an even smaller slice of that. When people think blue, they also think, you know, blue, purple, ultra violet. Ultra violet is bad for us. We know.
Dr. King: That. And blue is down close to the ultra violet side. Right? So you’re like, ooh, it’s on the bad end, right? Right.
Dr. Cha: Even anecdotally in the clinic. Right. I mean, you could be staring at a red screen. And I imagine as it strains our eyes just as much as a the screen does.
Dr. King: Yeah. I was always taught, you know, we, you know, we can see the like the Roy G big. Yeah. You guys heard that. And red orange yellow green blue indigo violet. The blue indigo violet is down towards the other side. The way we’re built we focus these lights differently. So our optimum vision is in the the yellow ranges.
Dr. King: It focuses right on the retina. Read. We’re a little far sighted for blue. We’re a little nearsighted for I always tell patients to drive down the road. And as you’re driving down the street and the lights on, the businesses turn on. If there’s a blue light, a blue sign and a red sign, you’re going to be able to see read the red sign up much sooner than you can read the blue sign.
Dr. King: It’s going to be blurrier for longer. And that’s just how we’re built. So the human eye does have a little more trouble focusing blue light. Well, guess where it comes from? A lot of our devices, there’s a lot of blue light coming from our devices. The worry has always been, since it’s harder to focus and it’s closer to the UV spectrum.
Dr. King: Are we harming our eyes?
Dr. Cha: I just happened to do a little bit of blue light research, like officially when I was a student back. Back in the old day and.
Dr. King: Way back, you know.
Dr. Cha: Back when I was young, chipper, when we did the research, there wasn’t really anything definitive anatomically, physiologically meaning affecting the structures of our eyes or how they function in a bad, unhealthy way. At least from those testing we did, the limited testing we did. One thing, though, is that maybe you can attest to some of this or maybe disagree.
Dr. Cha: You know, patients, you know, who are spending a lot of time in front of the computer, maybe like computer scientists or like people that are reading a lot of documents, you know, they do feel like when they implement some kind of blue blocking protocols, spectacles, filters, even like a color grading on their screen, they find that they feel less strain.
Dr. Cha: I have some.
Dr. King: Patients that, you know, they put the blue blockers on and it does help them focus better. Everybody’s visual system set a little different. You know, we do have studies that show when we stare at screens and whatnot, we’re focusing harder and we blink at a slower rate. We blink at half the rate we do. Having a conversation or lack of blinking can lead to tears, evaporation, and dry eye symptoms.
Dr. King: So now you’re focusing harder and your tears are evaporating faster. So it’s like kind of a recipe for some discomfort, right?
Dr. Cha: But is that really the blue light that’s causing it, or is it more of the habit of what. You know, we just happen to be in front of blue light.
Dr. King: There you go.
Dr. Cha: It’s the chicken or the egg. Almost.
Dr. King: I don’t think we’re getting damage from the blue lights, but we’re definitely getting, you know, tougher visual conditions. The human visual system tenses up to see up close and relax, to see this. And that’s how our eyes work. We converge. The muscles contract.
Dr. King: So guess what? If you spend all your time up close, you’re actually, you know, you’re in a constant state of tension and then you relax to see distance.
Dr. King: We do need a mixture. And that’s going to provide better visual hygiene and better comfort.
Dr. Cha: If you feel like it helps you, you know, kind of avoiding blue light for certain situations or for too long a period of time. Take the measures to try to limit yourself from the blue light.
Dr. King: There are some measures you can take. There’s the 20 2020 rule, the one hour before bedtime rule. Right? Right, right.
Dr. King: You know, there’s some stuff that you’ve heard about that there’s is some practicality behind that. The 20 2020 rule. This is especially good for for younger people. Every 20 minutes take 20s and look 20ft away.
Dr. Cha: There is some science behind things like, you know, it, affecting our circadian rhythm or like our sleep cycle.
Dr. King: Yes. This. Think about this. This is lit, right? And like, we love to stare at our phones when we’re going to bed.
Dr. King: Think about we’re staring at a light that’s like the sun coming up. It’s telling our brain, hey, it’s light. It’s not dark. That stimulation, it can actually create disruption to our sleep rhythms.
Dr. King: So we have more restlessly, more fitful sleep.
Dr. King: Yep. Yeah, it’d be shorter sleep cycles.
Dr. King: These are. Should be put down at least an hour before bedtime.
Dr. King: Let your brain re adapt to the lighting and, you know, you say, well, I watch TV, but TV is not the same.
Dr. King: It’s. It’s more of a picture image. And it’s much further away. Normally versus a screen like this.
Dr. King: And held in such close proximity with TV you have peripheral cues with this.
Dr. King: We just pulled it right up. You know it becomes our world less unless you’re like me where you can’t see it here.
Dr. King: You can’t see it here. Yeah. That’s those great lenses I have.
Dr. Cha: Yeah, that’s the good visual hygiene that, like, alluding to.
Dr. King: So we started with talking about visual hygiene, and it’s true because, you know, maybe blue lights a little dirty.
Dr. King: It makes your eyes a little better.
Dr. Cha: So blue light. I think it’s a kind of a summary. It’s not harmful.
Dr. Cha: But the habits associated with low light can, over time, not be the most optimal for our long term function and quality of life is might be a better way.
Dr. King: To put it. So we do create a little bit of a focusing issue.
Dr. King: But is it causing damage? No.
Dr. King: Yeah. But is it causing strain? Yeah.
Dr. King: There you have it. That’s our opinions.
Dr. King: We hope you learned a little something.
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Dr. King: If you want a little more information and go to Alliance aids.com.
Dr. King: And for right now I’m Doctor King.
Dr. Cha: And I’m Mike cha.
Dr. King: Take a break.