💡 Ideas & Tips
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Apr 15, 2024
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3 min read
Did you know that you can reduce your exposure to blue and green light at night by turning your iPhone to red? This article will explain how and why.
Why Turning Your iPhone Red at Night?
If you absolutely can't do without your iPhone before bedtime, then you can set your iPhone to red at night. You'll no longer have blue and green light coming from your screen, and your circadian rhythm and melatonin production will no longer be so disturbed.
After sunset, our eyes are not normally used to being exposed to blue light spectrums. But today, we're constantly bombarded with artificial blue light in the evenings, including from our screens.
Before the emergence of artificial light, humans were using fire or candlelight, which send wavelengths of orange and red light to our eyes. Our brains, thanks to the circadian rhythm, understood that it was time to switch to rest and sleep.
Today, it is still possible to avoid blue light in the evening with blue-light filtering glasses. You can also correct the problem at its root and switch to warm lighting at night, and turn your iPhone screen red.
5 Steps to Change your iPhone Screen to Red Light
1️⃣ Go to Settings > Accessibility
2️⃣ Select Display & Text Size
3️⃣ Choose Color Filters and enable Color Filters
4️⃣ Select Color Tint and choose red
5️⃣ Set Intensity and Hue to your preferences
Trick: Turn your iPhone red with a Triple-Click
At night, you can use your iPhone power button to turn your iPhone in red within 1 second. It also works to turn off the red light mode and go back to the normal screen color.
Here's how to set this shortcut in 3 steps:
1️⃣ Go in Settings > Accessibility
2️⃣ Select Accessibility Shortcut
3️⃣ Choose Color Filter
Now you can try to triple click on the power button of your iPhone and you will see it turn on/off the red light screen mode.
Other tips to limit blue light exposure in the evening
🕯️ Use Dimmed Lighting with Little to 0 Blue Light
Most of our light bulbs and LED lights produce blue light. During the day, it is perfect for our energy levels, but at night it's counterproductive to our circadian rhythm and melatonin production.
The solution is to use different, more dimly lit lighting at night. This way, colors tend more towards orange and red than blue or green. You can do this by lighting your bedroom with a candle, a salt lamp, or simply by buying a bulb that doesn't produce blue light.
There are also bulbs like this one that have 3 settings: morning (little blue light), afternoon (full spectrum), evening (zero blue light).
📉 Reduce Your Screen Time in the Evening
Reducing screen time can be a good challenge to reconnect with the present moment and be less exposed to blue light in the evening.
Jomo is an app that can help you do just that in a gentle way. You can install it on your iPhone, iPad or Mac, and with the 100% free version, you can start blocking or limiting TikTok or Facebook if you feel you're scrolling too long on those.
Jomo allows you to automatically block your most distracting apps in the evening to help you wind down for a good night's sleep. However, sticking to these screen time rules can be challenging. On Jomo, you can adjust your rules to make them more manageable in the long term. Here are our three key tips for maintaining a screen-free bedtime routine:
Gradually introduce screen-free evenings, starting with up to three times a week. It's easier to skip your evening Netflix series if you know you can watch it the next day. Start slowly and give yourself some flexibility.
Allow for emergency breaks in your blocking rule. With Jomo, you can pause the blocking for a few minutes if needed. Life is unpredictable, and allowing for exceptions helps prevent you from abandoning your screen time rules entirely.
Plan alternative activities. Spend 15 minutes with a cup of tea to jot down screen-free activities you could enjoy in the evening. Being proactive helps you avoid reverting to old habits.
🛑 Block Blue Light on Your Device Screens
We've seen how to block blue light on the iPhone by turning it red. But what about other devices? You can also enable "Night Shift" on your Mac (or use an app like f.lux if you're on Windows). The idea is to set a filter on your device that will change the luminosity and the color of your device by reducing blue light.
Here's how to set Night Shift in 3 steps:
1️⃣ Go in Settings > Monitor
2️⃣ Select Night Shift > Program > To Sunrise to Sunset
3️⃣ Clic on Done
This can be a very good solution for people who like to work on the computer in the evening, for example.
👓 Wear blue-light blocking glasses
An excellent way to limit your exposure to blue light in the evening is to wear glasses like those from Ra Optics, which filter out blue light completely. This way, wherever you are, you won't be exposed to blue light at all, and your brain will know that it's almost time to go to sleep.
Turning your iPhone red in the evening can help you reduce your exposure to blue light significantly. It only takes a few minutes, and in just 5 steps you can easily turn your iPhone red. Afterwards, you can also activate the three-click shortcut to turn your iPhone red in a flash! Other habits, such as switching to warm lights in the evening, can also help you switch to rest and digest mode and return to a normal circadian rhythm.
