How To Limit Blue Light At Night For Better Sleep

A good night’s sleep is essential for our well-being and health, but it’s often a luxury for working moms. After a full day of work and mom duties, we frequently end up going to bed later than we would like in an effort to finish the day’s chores or engage in some much-needed personal time.

For many of us, there’s really not much we can change about the time we go to bed, unless we’re willing to let the chores go undone or wake up at the crack of dawn. Personally, I’ll do a hard pass on both of those options. If you’re like me and you prefer to get stuff done after the kids go to bed, your exposure to blue light at night may be affecting your sleep quality.

Sleep Quality Versus Sleep Quantity

Sleep quantity refers to the number of hours of sleep we get at night. It’s obviously important to getting a good night’s rest, but for working moms, sometimes it just isn’t realistic to expect the recommended 7-9 hours a night.

Sleep quality is another important component of a good night’s sleep. It’s related to how “rested” a person feels after sleeping. According to the National Sleep Foundation, sleep quality can be objectively described by the following:

How long it takes to fall asleep (sleep latency)
How many times you wake up during the night (awakenings)
How long you are awake after first falling asleep (wake after sleep onset)
How long you are actually asleep compared to how long you are laying in bed (sleep efficiency)

Better sleep quality is significantly associated with improved mental health, with some research even indicating that it may be more important than how many hours we spend sleeping. Where does blue light fit into this? Evidence suggests that blue light exposure before bed affects our sleep quality, including the time it takes to fall asleep, next day alertness, and the time spent in the REM phase of sleep.

Sources Of Blue Light

Where does blue light come from? Apart from the sun (which is the biggest source of blue light), most artificial light sources emit it. That includes:

LED lights
Fluorescent lights
Cell phones
Computers
Tablets
Televisions
E-readers

It’s not an overstatement to say that essentially all of our modern devices and technologies emit blue light. This is why it’s generally to limit blue light at night to promote good sleep.

Effects Of Blue Light On Sleep

In the evening I’m either writing, watching a new episode of my favorite show, responding to messages and emails, mindlessly scrolling through reels, or planning my calendar for the week – all late at night on my phone under my bright overhead living-room lights. Every single one of those activities I can realistically only do after my son goes to bed, and every single one exposes me to blue light.

During the day, exposure to blue light is actually not a bad thing. It helps to improve cognitive functions like memory and attention while we’re working. But when we maintain that exposure into the late evening and night hours, it can affect our ability to fall and stay asleep.

Research suggests that blue light has the potential to interrupt both quantity and quality of sleep, both important factors in assessing sleep and restfulness. As far as the number of hours you’re getting at night, there’s not much you can do about that besides just going to bed earlier. For many of us, that’s just not realistic – at least not every night. We can, however, make a difference in our sleep quality by limiting how much blue light we’re getting in the evening.

How To Limit Blue Light At Night

We might not be able to completely cut out blue light, but there are ways to limit it as much as possible if we’re looking to improve our sleep and get a more restful night.

Replace scrolling with self-care

If you have a habit of scrolling through social media to wind down after the kids are asleep, consider occasionally replacing it with a self-care activity that doesn’t involve screen time. No judgment – I’ll be the first to admit that I’m guilty of frequent late night scrolling myself. I know that it seems to be the one activity you can do to shut your overstimulated brain off for a while, but it’s also not helping you in the sleep department. Think of it as a rare opportunity to do something good for yourself, with the added benefit of getting a better night’s sleep. Here are some ideas for what you can do instead:

Read a book
Listen to a meditation
Practice mindfulness
Do some reflective journaling
Practice gratitude
A breathing exercise
Engage in some self-care – do your nails, put on a face mask, or finally make use of that deep-conditioner for your hair

Use blue light blockers

If you can’t get around to ditching your devices at night (because honestly sometimes we just can’t), blue light blocking glasses or screens might be a good compromise. These blockers prevent the blue light from our devices from reaching our eyes, which means they may have a role in minimizing the negative effects of blue light on our sleep.

Turn off the TV, tablet, and computer at least 30 minutes before bed

Sleep experts recommend powering down devices somewhere between 1-2 hours before bedtime. In my household, that is absolutely not happening… but 20-30 minutes is doable. By powering down, I’m signaling to my brain that the day is over and it’s time to relax. We naturally don’t just switch from alert to drowsy mode; we need a little buffer time. Give yourself as much time as you reasonably can without screens, tablets, or televisions to wind down and prepare for sleep.

Adjust the settings on your devices

Many phones and devices have a “night mode” or other display option that allows you to shift the colors on your screen to warmer shades that are a little easier on the eyes. Changing these settings won’t exactly eliminate all blue light exposure, but it will help to reduce it. By itself, this probably won’t do much for your sleep, but combining this with something else like blue light blocking glasses might be helpful.

Turn off LED lights and use lamps with warm lighting

LED light bulbs have become popular in many homes because of their energy-efficiency compared to other types of artificial light, but they do emit a fair amount of blue light (particularly the ones on the cooler color spectrum). If possible, minimize LED light exposure in the evenings and try using lamps with red or amber lighting as your nighttime light source.

Sleep quantity and quality are both important to our daily function and overall health and well-being. While going to bed earlier may not always be an option for working moms, we can have a positive impact on the quality of our sleep by limiting blue light as much as possible from our devices and lights before bed. There are many ways to do this, and one method alone may not be sufficient. We might not be able to completely cut out all sources of blue light, but minimizing exposure is a good step towards maximizing the quality of our sleep.