Blue Light Glasses – Do You Have Them Yet?

I know blue light blocking glasses are all the rage right now, but I have been wearing them for a long time.

I have worn regular glasses or contacts since I was 7 years old. My eyesight is terrible. I would do anything I thought had a small chance of working to keep my eyes as good as they can be. I went to a consultation for Lasik a few years ago, freaked out and never thought about it again. So, I guess I wouldn’t do anything, but almost.

A couple years ago I was telling my eye doctor that my eyes would get tired and irritated by the end of the day. I have an office job that involves looking at a lot of computer screens, sometimes with very small numbers on them. He suggested I buy the cheap reading glasses you can get at any gas station and wear them over my contacts to help with eye strain. I was under 30 at the time, so naturally I laughed and thought he was crazy. When budget season hit at work and I had to see all the tiny numbers I decided to give in and buy a pair.

I was going through cheap reading glasses like they were paper plates. I would throw them in my purse, sit one them on accident, and because they are so cheap they would get destroyed. So to Amazon I went, thinking I could get a slightly better pair. While researching I found blue light blocking reading glasses. I googled what blue light blocking meant, then bought them to see if they would help my eye strain at all. I bought this pair on December 11, 2017.

I wore these glasses for a while and started to notice I wasn’t struggling as much with tired eyes in the afternoons. The fact that they were magnified helped too, but I noticed it was easier to fall asleep at night and I didn’t have to strain my eyes as much watching tv in the evenings.

Any screen that you look at gives off blue light. Think about the amount of time you spend looking at a screen. Computers, tablets, TV, your phone the list goes on and on. Blue light glasses filter out the highest energy visible light (HEV) on those devices. If you have an iPhone you can set your screen to night mode which does the same thing. Sleep disruption and eye strain are just a couple of the issues overexposure to HEV light can cause. Think of it like salt, our body needs some salt but eating too much does more harm than good. HEV light is the same way.

The one thing I didn’t like about my first pair of blue light glasses in the long run, was the fact that they were magnified. I was constantly taking them off to talk to people, or when I was on the radio because the screens were too far away. I stopped wearing them for a few months and definitely noticed a difference.

When I started my new job I immediately ordered two new pair of blue light glasses, this time with no magnification. I ordered this pair for my at home glasses and this pair for work. I wear them every single day at work and at night while I’m watching TV. I am still getting HEV light from all the times I look at my phone for a quick second, but I have noticed my eye strain and eye tiredness has almost completly went away.