Blue light and the retina
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@lorna said:
"Among adults with ADHD, the majority has an (extremely) late chronotype and a delayed sleep phase (7, 8)."
Here's the beginning of that paragraph, but you may or may not be able to recite all this if you've read it before:
"From chronobiology studies, we know that there is a link between retinal function and the circadian rhythm. " That's the sentence that really kicked it off.Well that just went from vision right back to sleep! That just shows how important it is. A paper about vision just starting discussing sleep. How did that happen? I guess eyes and sleep are related..., but, yes, that definitely explains my late sleeping schedule, shucks. I tell you, you just poured a bunch of negative information into my screen! Thank you though, it's worth it to learn. At least I can be aware of all this stuff, I can't thank you enough!
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I think the article is just talking about the light that enters your eyes while you are awake. You know, blue light, red light, bright light, dim light, all the stuff that we already know. I think they're just describing it differently.
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@TwoCables Thanks, I was going to post that I was confused as to why the subject changed so abruptly but you really picked up on that quickly, thanks. Yeah, that seems to be the case, it's discussing how the light goes and works it's magic in the brain.
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@Tungsten_smooth Yes, it's all related very closely. The retina is really important to circadian rhythms. It's a lot to take in, especially when some of it rings true. But I hope you won't feel too much like it's all bad news. Reading too many studies online can have that effect sometimes...
@lorna
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@Tungsten_smooth said:
@TwoCables Thanks, I was going to post that I was confused as to why the subject changed so abruptly but you really picked up on that quickly, thanks. Yeah, that seems to be the case, it's discussing how the light goes and works it's magic in the brain.
Yeah, it can seem like magic can't it? Every time I swap out my Switch 3-Way LED lights for my red FEIT LED lights (right after switching f.lux to 800K), I can truly feel a difference immediately.
Then as I get super close to going to bed, I turn off one of the two red LEDs (to lower the brightness), and again I can feel a big difference in the way I feel.
During the whole time I'm using my red LED lights with f.lux set to 800K, there are SOMETIMES occasions where I'll want to look at something that needs more accurate color. So, I'll disable f.lux for a minute while I look and once again, I immediately feel the difference; I feel more alert. Then when re-enable f.lux, I immediately feel a big difference yet again. It's like magic. lol I love it!
Or how about sunlight? lol If I happen to have woken up at around sunset, then I have to wait until sunrise to really begin to feel more lively and ready to go. Then on a sunny day, if I open and close my blinds (room-darkening), I again feel a difference.
The affect that light has on us from its color temperature to its brightness is absolutely mind-blowing to me. Until I discovered f.lux and became aware of this stuff, I never noticed it. I mean, seriously: I just didn't notice the effect that light has on me.
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@lorna said:
@Tungsten_smooth Yes, it's all related very closely. The retina is really important to circadian rhythms. It's a lot to take in, especially when some of it rings true. But I hope you won't feel too much like it's all bad news. Reading too many studies online can have that effect sometimes...
lol yep, it's like having a simple headache and you go on the internet read all the possible reasons for having a headache and the next thing you know, you think it means you're going to die today.
The internet can be useful, but it can also be very destructive when you believe everything you read, or read things into things that aren't even there.
Unless you are TRYING to damage your retinas, I seriously doubt they're being damaged unless you like to regularly shine lasers into your eyes and look directly at un-shielded super-bright LEDs from 1 inch away from your eyes. Or, if you like to look directly at the sun every day. Some people do that you know; they call it Sun Gazing, and it's extremely stupid to do. Personally, my version of Sun Gazing is simply closing my eyes and pointing my face directly toward the sun.
I'm getting off-track though. lol Really, if you are just doing normal things every day (nothing super unusual in terms of the light you're exposed to or the types of light), then I'm sure your retinas are just fine. As has been said, it isn't exactly easy to damage your retinas unless you do very specific things that causes damage and those specific things are things that most of us never experience.
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@TwoCables I do exact the same thing - I love how blue the world looks when I open my eyes again.
@lorna
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@lorna said:
@TwoCables I do exact the same thing - I love how blue the world looks when I open my eyes again.
hehehe yeah that's a strange phenomenon. I guess that means the rods and cones were overloaded a little bit.
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@lorna I had to take a break reading the myopia link, phew, lot of text. Yeah, it's not all bad news, it's just birth defects is what I get from it, and I'm sure I have a lot of those for reasons I'm not getting into. It's great to learn and be aware of all this, so if I have children I'll monitor their breathing very closely, and hopefully that "one time event" I can somehow remedy that and save their life from ADHD. On that note, if an infant does start breathing abnormally in their sleep, or maybe if they stop breathing--what do you do? That would be cool to know.
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@lorna said:
@TwoCables I do exact the same thing - I love how blue the world looks when I open my eyes again.
O.K. so I'm not the only one who does that! Cool, glad to know I have moderately normal color vision, although the links said that having ADHD could result in the blue spectrum being different, but it didn't say in what way, so I guess I'm fine.
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@Tungsten_smooth said:
@lorna I had to take a break reading the myopia link, phew, lot of text. Yeah, it's not all bad news, it's just birth defects is what I get from it, and I'm sure I have a lot of those for reasons I'm not getting into. It's great to learn and be aware of all this, so if I have children I'll monitor their breathing very closely, and hopefully that "one time event" I can somehow remedy that and save their life from ADHD. On that note, if an infant does start breathing abnormally in their sleep, or maybe if they stop breathing--what do you do? That would be cool to know.
I would guess that your best course of action would be calling 911, unless you are a doctor and know how to save the baby's life on the spot.
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I thought of this when when read about how important breathing is:
It's a great movie with an awful crappy ending.
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@Tungsten_smooth Baby monitors are getting incredibly sophisticated, they have all manner of new things coming out to monitor health. If the child has a physical obstruction that's causing the problem, like enlarged adenoids, the treatment might be to remove them. In that case you might notice snoring. I feel like you might enjoy getting first aid certification!
Editing to answer your other question, adults with ADHD can have trouble with depth perception and the blue region of the spectrum (and extra sensitivity to light).
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@lorna Would sensitivity to light include complaining about having to turn a frosted white Incandescent bulb that looks to be at least 75w at night be included in that? I don't think I'm sensitive in the daytime and try to welcome all the light I can get.
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@Tungsten_smooth said:
@lorna Would sensitivity to light include complaining about having to turn a frosted white Incandescent bulb that looks to be at least 75w at night be included in that? I don't think I'm sensitive in the daytime and try to welcome all the light I can get.
I find that when I'm tired and when my body is actually producing its own melatonin, I am far more sensitive to light and I feel much better with dim light. I think it's our body's way of saying, "dude, would you just go to sleep already? Good god."
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This thread has been wonderful! Could we also dig up how much the chances are that offspring from adhd patents will have all this?
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@elisadelina yea no f.lux is wrong on this matter. The frequency / quality and source of the light is massively important.
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@yourmom We're referencing doses of blue light from the international hazard documents (e.g. IEC 62471, ICNIRP, and ANSES). There is a broad consensus regarding these doses of visible radiation, so if you're saying you disagree with that body of research, please elaborate.
There is indeed a lot of marketing that ignores dose and focuses only on wavelength. This approach is incorrect - there's a threshold of energy known to cause harm to the human eye. Light is measurable and quantifiable, and if you don't have enough energy to damage cells, you don't have enough energy to damage cells.
The potential blue light hazard from the brightest computer monitor we know is less than 10% of what you'd see from just blue sky, removing any direct sunlight. If you were to look at a regular sidewalk in daytime, that exposure is hundreds of times more powerful than your monitor screen - this is how we are hoping to get people to think about light, in real power units and not just subjective colors.
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@lorna I get all that, I disagree I think the flicker rate of the source of light (artificial light ) and the overall spectrums balance with other colors is what makes the real difference. Not the intensity in terms of power units or specific wavelengths. The most intense of blue light is always balanced by red in the sun's light. It changes the effect on physiology of the retinohypothalamic tract, the setting of superchiasmatic nucleus circadian rhythm and all the downstream molecular clocks of our organs.
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@yourmom I think you owe the thread some clear language here - you began by saying "f.lux is wrong", and you have made no statement at all that could support this position.
f.lux launched nearly nine years ago, and the hypothesis behind the product is that displays make enough light to disrupt circadian rhythms at night. We understand these biological systems and the research behind them very well, and we have helped to popularize the research on the non-visual effects of blue light and its effects on the central clock, the SCN. As well, we frequently criticize flicker and distribution of light that leads to glare.
A majority of the non-visual effects of light are conveyed to the SCN through a single photoreceptor, and a non-visual system that achieves the "balance" you refer to is not supported by any literature. Even though the cones are believed to convey extra information to the ipRGCs, they are doing so using much of the same circuitry that drives color perception, not by some magic additional system.
I have previously made notes about the claims made about beneficial effects due to IR and the retina here: https://forum.justgetflux.com/topic/3809/which-is-the-best-light-troughout-the-day-to-stay-in-front-of-pc/6
And again, I will say, the evidence in rodent studies suggests that these effects happen only at extreme irradiance levels, many hundreds of times greater than indoor lightingIt is very reasonable to talk about what you see (these colors don't match) or how you feel (this flicker makes me feel eyestrain), but to impute physiological harm (as some do) to these effects without any evidence is a mistake. Some things are just uncomfortable, but they are not known to cause any lasting harm.
We are facing a similar problem with circadian effects - people believe, falsely, that changing color temperature a little bit will positively affect circadian rhythms, when in fact, small changes are likely to have very small effects. Eye strain and circadian/alerting light are not likely to be the same thing for most people.
When you are talking about non-visual physiological effects of light, you can't perceive directly everything that is going on. Dose matters and measurement matters, and you would be well served to read up on both.
