The Importance Of Banning Blue Light Before Bedtime

Individuals who prefer to wind down using their smartphones before getting their desired shuteye are doing it wrong. Blue light or the short wavelengths that come from screens and monitors can disrupt sleep. Recent studies suggest that watching television and using gadgets such as tablets, smartphones, and laptops a few hours before bedtime throws off a person’s circadian rhythm. Instead of preparing the body for sleep, the combination of blue light and artificial light in the household might cause the body to secrete melatonin, a hormone that is responsible for the body’s waking and sleeping cycles.

Image source: Health.com

Exposure to blue light at the right time can be helpful. Daytime exposure to blue light along with sunlight can improve a person’s mood. It can also boost focus and maintain the body’s circadian rhythm. And while there truly are early birds who require less sleep and late sleepers who are wired to sleep beyond the usual bedtime, prolonged gadget use before going to bed not only wakes the body up but affects the quality of sleep.

To improve the quality of sleep, experts suggest avoiding the use of blue light-enriched gadgets two to three hours before bedtime. For those who are working late at night, the use of blue light filtering glasses will help maintain their circadian rhythm even with the disruption of gadgets. To fully ease a person back into the right sleeping pattern, the use of dimmers for other lighting at home is also recommended.

Image source: India.com

Getting the right sleep is important for people of all ages. For a truly good night’s rest, keep gadgets far away from the bed and turn down the lights.

Dr. Lisa Marie Cannon‘s practice is focused on providing diagnostic, treatment, and management options to patients with pulmonary and respiratory conditions like COPD, tuberculosis, and pneumonia, as well as sleep medicine. Visit this page for more information on these fields.

Remote Monitoring Through Electronic ICU

Ever since their development, intensive care units (ICU) have treated countless patients for severe and life-threatening illnesses and injuries, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), trauma, sepsis, and multiple organ failure.

These conditions require round-the-clock and close monitoring, with specialized equipment and well-trained medical professionals on hand. This is to ensure that the body still functions as normally as possible.

Image source: usnews.com

However, there are plenty of hospitals that are understaffed but filled with patients. Even with the unprecedented rapid growth of the nursing workforce due to baby-boomer nurses deferring retirement, Bloomberg notes that the demand for nurses still outpaces the increase in number of nurses. The primary reasons are expanded healthcare coverage, and population growth and aging.

To address this, more electronic ICUs (eICU) are being developed. This is a form of telemedicine that employs progressive technology, allowing nurses and physicians to remotely monitor ICU patients, assist in ICU management, and intervene early in patient care – either from within the building itself or a different location.

eICU utilizes two-way cameras, microphones, smart alarms, high-speed data connection, and other monitoring tools.

Image source: wfae.org

The facility has been instrumental in the significant reduction of mortality rate, length of stay, and medical care costs.

As of 2016, more than 50 health systems and 500 hospitals in the US have installed an eICU facility. That number is seen to increase in the near future as installation is seen to be less costly and as Internet services in rural areas improve.

Dr. Lisa Marie Cannon has a career in medicine spanning more than 15 years. Her specializations are pulmonology, internal medicine, sleep medicine, and critical care. Learn more about these medical fields by subscribing to this blog.