Reading an interesting book at bedtime is a time honored method of falling asleep. With the advent of LED reading lights a problem has cropped up due to the blue light content of LED’s, which reduces the feeling of sleepiness. This is a relatively new problem, because the old-fashioned incandescent bulbs we grew up with emit much less blue light.
Recent research shows the blue light that is prevalent in LEDs disrupts the sleep cycle. Blue light leads to a reduction in the production of melatonin, an important hormone for restful sleep. For more information about LEDs and blue light, see our video article, The hidden danger of white light: Blue.
Reading before going to sleep is restful but the LED light I’m using is disruptive. So what can I do? Glad you asked. A couple of members of our Ivins Night Sky Initiative have a solution. Tim Povlick and Lois Diehl added a simple filter to their reading lights, cutting out almost all of the blue light. More about the filter later.
In this example the LED based reading light had a CCT of approximately 4000K. The device uses 3 AAA batteries and the light resembles a miniature Cobra street light. Here’s what the light looks like before adding the filter and after.
Note: Don’t wrap the filter over lights that get hot
This image shows the lamp illuminating a text book. Note the white color of the light indicating a large percentage of blue light.
To reduce the blue light a blue blocking filter was used. The material is soft plastic and has an orange color. The filter is cut to size using scissors and taped to the LED.
Light from the reading lamp now has a soft warm cast and does not interfere with easily falling asleep. This image shows the effects of the filter.
Reading is more relaxing and the slight color cast doesn’t interfere with reading the text. Oh, and if you don’t like the color cast shown in the example above, just try different filter colors. The ones to test range from a light yellow to an amber. Lighter colors mean you will get more blue light, but any reduction in blue is an improvement.
What do I get and where to buy it?
You can get the filters from Adorama (Lee filters UV Blue Blocker). A 24′ x 24″ gel sheet costs $8.69 and is big enough to cover a few lights.
The City is doing it too
The City is doing the same thing on new streetlights. Here’s how the color spectrum changes with the addition of an amber filter. The blue light almost disappears.
Join us
Let us know if this Initiative is important to you, if you are willing to get involved, and what else you think we should be doing to improve, preserve, and protect the night skies in Ivins. We will get back to you as soon as possible.