The Blue Light Myth
Transcript (Click to View)
Transcript
Speaker 1 is Glar5
[introduction music]
[alarm blaring, then a yawn]
00:00:11 Speaker 1
Have your parents ever demanded your phone at night so you’d actually go to bed? Sure, it was probably because you had a habit of staying up till 3am. But the fear of blue light definitely plays a role. What if I told you that it might not just be blue light that keeps you up at night?
00:00:27 Speaker 1
Within your retina are specialized cells called iPRGCs, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, which act like built-in alarm clocks. They measure the amount of light so they can set your body’s master clock. Morning light signals cortisol to keep you awake and simultaneously your body starts a 16-hour countdown and once this hits zero it releases melatonin to make you sleepy.
00:00:54 Speaker 1
This is exactly why blue light should be considered a myth. Though iPRGCs are most sensitive to blue light wavelengths, scientific studies have shown that total light intensity matters almost as much.
00:01:07 Speaker 1
A 2011 study published by the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism states, “As a result of this exposure to electrical light between dusk and bedtime, presleep levels of melatonin were reduced by 71.4% and total daily levels of melatonin were reduced by about 12.5%.” While blue light is the hardest on melatonin production, other light sources can cause similar levels of harm to sleep.
[alarm blaring]
00:01:36 Speaker 1
Hey, I’m not done yet! Sheesh, that was jarring.
00:01:40 Speaker 1
Anyways, the solution isn’t about the color of light coming out of your screen, rather it’s actually about the amount of light. If you want to use your phone at night, the best solution is to dim your screen and keep the phone further away from your face. You might really want to consider keeping your body clock in check.
[outro music]
Production of the Podcast
Equipment?
I used my Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra voice recording app to record the audio. The audio from my prior blog post wasn’t as high quality as I had liked so I rerecorded and took testing samples to ensure there was no background noise like fans or too much movement. For the editing, I did that on my laptop which involved transferring over the audio files.
Editing Software?
The software that I used is called Soundtrap. It is free to use and was extremely easy to learn. I really enjoyed the editing process. First, I added all of the audio files to the editor and then began splitting them to trim out several seconds of silence. After that, I was able to organize everything, such as putting the intro at the beginning and outro at the end. I had to trim down some sections so that I was exactly at 2:00 minutes.
Sources
Research for the Podcast
Exposure to Room Light before Bedtime – JCEM
Melatonin Suppression by Light – NIH
Circadian Rhythm – Sleep Foundation