How your mobile phone could be harming your skin
You’ve probably heard that you should shut down your smartphone at least an hour before bed because of blue light, as it can play havoc with your eyes and disrupt your internal clock. But increasingly there’s another part of the body which can be affected – your skin.
There’s a bewildering array of skin care products available promising to protect our skin from all manner of threats including blue light. So should we be worried?
Results from a study in Iran, published in the Journal of Biomedical Physics and Engineering in 2018, found that exposure to blue light can lead to damage in human eyes and skin.
Another, published in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity in 2015, found a connection between blue light and free radicals in skin which accelerate ageing.
Melbourne dermatologist, Dr Niyati Sharma, says blue light also causes a skin pigmentation called melasma. Skins of colour and females are most at risk of developing it and one of the culprits is blue light.
“This is a well-known phenomenon that dermatologists have known about for some time,” Sharma says.
“I’ve had patients with melasma tell me that they spend only a little of their time outside and I have to tell them that blue light from their smart phone may be contributing to it.”
We are constantly surrounded by blue light as it is emitted by the sun, LED lights, and electronic devices, and we’re being exposed to higher levels than ever before.
Sharma says that as little as 60 minutes of exposure can trigger changes to the skin, but in some cases blue light has benefits, with controlled use helping to treat skin conditions including acne. “One of the best ways to protect the skin is wearing sunscreen,” she says. “It’s also really important to use one that contains an iron oxide filter to help block blue light and to wear it indoors and outdoors and reapply it regularly.”
WHAT TO DO
Sharma recommends the following to reduce your exposure to blue light.
1 Set the blue light filter on electronic devices to run 24 hours a day.
2 Replace LED lights at home with regular light bulbs, especially in rooms where you spent a lot of time awake.
3 Wear blue light filtering glasses.