> The wavelength of light may also affect the photophobia percept. Main et al. (103) found that shorter wavelength (blue) light was more uncomfortable for subjects with migraine than for those with tension-type headache or controls. These investigators also reported that longer wavelength (red) light was also less comfortable for subjects with migraine (103).
I’m not the parent commenter, but I’ve heard ‘photophobia’ used to refer to the sort of extreme light sensitivity experienced by migraine sufferers: not a ‘fear of light’ per se, but rather the perception of bright light as an unpleasant or even painful stimulus.
Honestly even if that doesn't do much for most those things are great for me, I have a migraine-adjacent visual issue which gives me photophobia and lowering the colour temperature of light in general helps with that.
Bright lights give me a headache, especially in midday when it's bright outside. I'll often resort to wearing sunglasses indoors when it gets out of hand.
Perhaps it's a certain kind of light, but I don't get the same kind of headache outside in bright lights. (Although I do find bright days painful.)
Weren't blue-light filtering glasses proved to be with no known benefits? E.g. [1].
Personally, I'm very sensitive to light and get frequent debilitating headaches. Blue light filter changes very little for me. Making the whole screen just red with something like flux (together with my glasses that also block blue light) might help around 5-10%, but the migraine still comes full force (maybe 10-15m later).
The receptors that cause light to be painful are sensitive to the blue part of the spectrum. Fluorescent tubes tend to load up on that part of the spectrum because it is cheap to do so and high color temperature used to be a luxury feature, not because there is any technical reason to.
Yellow "bug light" CFLs do not cause headaches for me, and are easy to read by. Unfortunately the color rendition is ... poor. It seems that there is no middle ground with CFL engineers.
I have a neurological disorder called visual snow syndrome that's the root cause, nobody really understands where it comes from but the current theory is a dysfunction of metabolism in part of the visual cortex. It causes all sorts of weird visual stuff like the eponymous 'tv snow' and other distortions as well as intractable headaches, apparently it has similarities with certain kinds of migraine. As for the photophobia it's quite a difficult sensation to describe but for me its acute form is an unusual sensation that's in the same category as pain without being pain itself - it's like the sensation of looking directly at the sun but with ordinary light sources that don't bother other people. The chronic form is less intense, it basically just makes concentrating in a bright environment exhausting after a while and it trashes my focus, making me headachy and irritable. As a result I never have strong lights on even at night, and I also don't drive in the dark because the glare from the headlights can mess up my vision for minutes at a time which is obviously not safe.
Fluorescent tubes are among the worst offenders for messing with my concentration, though anything with a pronounced 50 Hz flicker or too high a colour temperature isn't great for me. The kind of cheap lights offices traditionally use are particularly bad which is part of why I'm full time WFH now!
Trouble with f.lux is it reduces blue. Doesnt eliminate it. Speciality glasses give more dramatic results.
Axon or Thermaspecs brand name.
I’m hyper sensitive to lights and medications, 10 minutes of exposure is enough to trigger a migraine. Plus side, it makes trial and error testing Much easier.
I don't see in the study linked in the article where it attributes light mode to more eye strain.
I found where blue light causes eye strain, and it most certainly does, I immediately notice the difference when using a blue light filter on my monitor, but you can have both dark mode and a blue light filter enabled.
> I think your experience with migraines can hardly inform a typical person's experience with blue-light filters
I would guess it's the opposite--because I'm extremely sensitive to light in general, I'd think if blue-light filters were effective, they'd be even more effective on me, which they aren't.
> Also, flux is aimed at sleep regulation
People seem to equate "less blue light" with "better" and yet when I make my screen dark orange/red, it does nothing.
Also note that I said something like Flux.
Last but not least, my glasses also have blue-light filter in them. So I'm reducing blue light with both HW and SW and it has very minuscule effect on me, personally.
Of course, it's anecdotal experience and nothing more. But I get an eye twitch when I see stuff like "blue filter is a game changer". Sounds like placebo to me.
You're absolutely right, our body most definitely reacts in different ways to different wavelengths of light.
A specific green has been shown to help reduce pain. [1] 525 nm seems to be the magic wavelength in this particular case.
I'm a chronic acute pain sufferer. I'd love for something as simple as an array of green LEDs to help with my pain. I keep meaning to get a large breadboard, a bunch of LEDs, and make such a device.
I wonder what effects other wavelengths might have? Would lights help sleep if they matched sunset darkening to night time through purple and indigo? It's fascinating stuff.
Some of us are less sensitive to it than others. In particular I am prone to migraines in bright conditions, and on a bright summer day I have difficulty looking at the sky, which will be coated in thousands of bright and distracting microscopic floaters *
And yes, I'm offering anecdotal data-- but I've already provided the relevant studies so this is just a bonus. In my case, the slightest thing will keep me from sleeping. My A/C was out last night and I got scarcely and hour of sleep because of the heat. I am manic depressive and sometimes I will stay up for days if I don't make extra effort to fall asleep. f.lux particularly made a very noticeable difference to me within days of adopting it.
I'll add to your comment that light sensitivity in general is a known issue with many people (eg autistics). They actually feel pain from seeing lights that are too bright including lots of sunlight or artificial light. So, one or more of these people might have this condition.
Yeah man I seem to be sensitive to both: red lights (or red shifted monitors) during the day make me feel fatigued and sluggish; white and blue lights at night make me feel anxious and vulnerable.
This could be placebo. Anything related to sleep or headaches there could be a psychological factor ie because you “know” blue light is bad it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
One group of people who could potentially be affected: people who use anti-SAD lighting (especially people building souped-up DIY rigs: https://meaningness.com/metablog/sad-light-led-lux). Those use LEDs and are specifically meant to be very bright and very blue.
Hopefully this turns out not to be a big deal. Having to choose between depression and retina damage would sure suck :/
I've heard this as well. I have blue eyes and extreme sensitivity to light, much moreso than my partner w/ brown eyes. I can't be outside without sunglasses for instance, and I've noticed polarized lens's are far more effective at reducing my pain point than normal tinted glasses. I also can't just flick on the lights in the morning when I wake up, I have to gradually introduce my eyes to light.
Blue Spectrum light could be a big factor towards many health problems in the upper northern hemisphere (And probably lower southern), depression, macular retinopathy, migranes, tinnitus, affected autonomic function, CTE, post concussion syndrome - all affected by blue light, winter sun, white/blue LEDS, Car headlamps.
> The wavelength of light may also affect the photophobia percept. Main et al. (103) found that shorter wavelength (blue) light was more uncomfortable for subjects with migraine than for those with tension-type headache or controls. These investigators also reported that longer wavelength (red) light was also less comfortable for subjects with migraine (103).
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3485070/#!po=0....
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