Apple’s Night Shift Mode may not be as helpful as one thought. A 2018 study from R Nagare and MG Figueiro found the Night Shift mode, when your screen colors get warmer at night, may not be enough to stop melatonin suppression. The study can be found here: “Does the iPad Night Shift mode reduce melatonin suppression?”
First off, what is Melatonin and why is it bad if it’s suppressed?
The Mayo Clinic defines melatonin as “a hormone in your body that plays a role in sleep. The production and release of melatonin in the brain is connected to time of day, increasing when it's dark and decreasing when it's light.” It plays a roll in your circadian rhythm, telling your body it’s time to sleep.
When it’s suppressed, your body doesn’t get the message that it’s time for bed. This can lead to less sleep, lower quality sleep, and a worse feeling the following day.
Now that we know melatonin suppression hurts your sleep, let’s dive into the study on how the Night Mode on apple products plays a role.
The Study
This one is a bit technical, so bear with me. The study took 12 participants (minimum number needed to observe safely conclude results on melatonin suppression) with no prior sleep issues and tested them on four different conditions. Figueiro and team had participants report to the laboratory on four nights (each session followed by at least a week break) to view identically configured iPad’s at the highest brightness for the duration of the experiment, under the following conditions:
- While wearing Orange glasses (completely blocks Blue Light, control group)
- While weaning Blue Light Goggles (which delivered Blue Light rays directly to the cornea from LED lights)
- While the iPad was on Night Shift High (the least warm option, lowest protection)
- While the iPad was on Night Shift Low (the most warm option, highest protection)
Figueiro and team had the participants in low light for 30 minutes to get a baseline, then let participants do whatever they chose (games, shopping, reading, tv…) on the iPad for two hours. Saliva samples (how they can test for Melatonin) were taken every hour.
The Results
The results were surprising, melatonin was suppressed at various scales across the three non-control tests. The table below illustrates the results:
In the three scenarios, a few items were clear:
- The longer you are exposed to Blue Light before bed, the more Melatonin is suppressed (see the 2 hour bar graphs above, all higher than the 1 hour)
- Doing Night Shift is better than nothing, but you need to use the strongest setting (Night Shift Low above, suppressed Melatonin the least)
What does this mean for me?
Now we know that Night Shift on your iphone is not enough to block melatonin suppression from Blue Light (which makes sense because it does nothing to stop the light rays from the phone, only changes the color), what can you do to get that protection from your iPhone?
That’s where we come in. BlueBuffer is a BlueLight blocking iPhone screen case with specially tempered glass to keep Blue Light out of your eyes. In the Study above, the Blue Light Goggles (the worst outcome for melatonin suppression as seen in the graph) were mentioned as delivering Blue Light rays from LED lights. Well in case you want proof we work, here is a video of a BlueBuffer case blocking similar Blue LED lights in real time.
We wanted to offer a product that can give you the best protection, while offering no change to your lifestyle. If you’re interested, check us out! (and P.S. if you’ve made it this far in the article, try using “EARLYACCESS” at checkout for $10 off)
Thanks so much for reading and check out our blog for more breakdowns of medical research on Blue Light!