I find it mind-boggling that most people still aren't aware of the detrimental effects of the artificial blue lights in and around our homes or that come at us from our phone screens, and if they are aware, how many take no action to mitigate these detrimental effects when there are so many options these days. I can’t tell ypu how many times I’ve looked at someone else’s phone in the evening and quickly turned my face away because their screen was just lit up so brightly that I knew even a few seconds of exposure could impair my nightly beauty rest!

Exposure to the wrong kind of light at the wrong time of day is just so bad for our human physiology! Blue light in the evening leads to circadian disruption, which leads to impaired ability to have a restorative night of sleep and wake up feeling distressed. The "junk" lighting that we are barraged with in our modern cultures — headlights, LEDs, fluorescent lights, streetlights, TV, and any screens. It’s inescapable, so really taking any action to reduce the junk light we are exposed to is a really great idea, especially if you have ANY issues at all with sleep, like trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or waking up too early.

Unfortunately, your iPhone and tablet are some of the worst culprits contributing to blue light exposure. Their electronic displays have higher concentrations of blue light than even the morning sun! While, wearing silly-looking orange-tinted glasses after dark is a great way to attempt to block out the harmful and unnatural blue lights that wreak havoc with your hormones, sleep cycles, and circadian rhythm, your iPhone has a built in setting that does not require you to wear any glasses in order to avoid the blue light. Read on and learn how to hack your phone right now by turning on these built-in features!

Night Shift on your iPhone

For iphone users, any operating system that comes after iOS 10 fortunately gives us the ability to use Night Shift. Night Shift removes a fraction of the blue light spectrum from beaming out at you from your screen by warming up the tone from blue to yellow. If you haven't already turned it on, be sure to set your phone so that Night Shift goes on automatically at the current time the sun sets for best effect. You can also easily manually turn it on earlier, or even have it on all day if you find you prefer it. Here are instructions.

TO TURN ON NIGHT SHIFT:

Go to your phone's Settings.
Click Display & Brightness.
Scroll down to Night Shift, click, and set it from Sunrise to Sunset. Also, on the same page, make sure you move the spectrum option of the Color Temperature all the way to the right, More Warm, for most effectiveness.

Turn on Red Light Color Filter on Iphone

One More Trick Not to Miss: the Color Tint Filter

In addition, there is another feature called Color Tint that changes the entire screen so that it is red hued. In addition to enabling Night Shift, you can set it up so that you can easily turn it on at night too. I highly suggest implementing this, as it actually blocks a lot more of the bad blue light in the evening with just a simple triple-click of the home button. It’s too easy to not do! Once you have turned it on, the red tint will make mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or Instagram a lot less fun too, which is an added bonus!

Turning on the red hue is great for all evening phone use. However, if you did forget to turn it on, it’s smart to at least get into the habit or triple clicking it on when you are putting your phone in airplane mode before you go to sleep, so if you absolutely need to check your phone for something in the middle of the night, the red light coming from the screen won't have such negative effects on your biology. Also, if need be, you can then use the screen as a handy makeshift red-tinted flashlight, which is the only kind you should be using at night anyways! Instructions for turning the Color Tint feature on are a little tricky, but it's worth taking a few minutes so you can enable this feature quickly in the future. DO IT NOW, YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY!

TO CONFIGURE RED TINT:

Go to Settings, Accessibility, and then Display & Text Size. Turn Color Filters to ON.
Next, click Color Tint. Make sure the check mark is next to Color Tint, and the bottom HUE all the way to the left (on red).
Next, customize the INTENSITY slider to achieve the desired red effect. I slide the INTENSITY about three quarters to the right. Keep in mind that depending on the intensity of red you set it at, the red hue can make it a little hard to read your screen, but you can always then increase your screen’s brightness a little bit for more contrast to make reading easier.
There’s one more step to take if you want to turn on a shortcut for this, which I recommend doing as it allows you to simply triple-click the home button to switch between normal and Red Tint. Go to Settings, then Accessibility. Scroll all the way down to find Accessibility Shortcut. Choose Color Filters. That’s it
Now, when you want to turn the red screen on, simply triple-click the home button! It’s like magic, for your eyes and for helping to improve your sleep! 😴

MORE RESOURCES:

• Here’s a short video to inspire you to be more conscious about your exposure to "junk" lighting. Take a few minutes to watch this passionate TED talk by my colleague Thaddeus Owen.

• Read more about the connection between cancer in women and blue light exposure HERE.

• Maybe you’ve seen some of your friends wear funny orange glasses around the house after dark? You can get them cheaply, and they’ll prevent your eyes from being exposed to all the other toxic light around you after dark. Very useful! They come at all price points, high quality ones can be found at BluBlocker and Ra Optics, but you can check out a cheap pair HERE.