We are excited to announce that Somnitude will participate in the Beyond Lighting Conference to be held at the University of Toronto, from May 2 - 4. 

The conference will feature talks and workshops by leading academics and industry experts in the area of lighting science. Of particular interest for us is the focus of this years theme on lighting for human health benefits.

The keynote address will be provided by Dr. Marie Dumont, who is Canada's pre-eminent researcher on the intersection on light, sleep and cognition. She is the Scientific Director of the Centre for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine (CARSM) at Sacre-Coeur Hospital of Montreal, and a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Montreal. 

The Conference is hosted by the Sustainable Smart Lighting Network (SSLNet) which is Canada's largest and most active lighting network....

It can be tricky finding the right pair of blue light filtering eyewear. There are many things to consider; including cost, style, spectral transmittance and comfort. With many potential companies offering products, it’s difficult for the customer to truly understand which company offers the best solution for them.

That’s why a website dedicated to eye strain solutions, Glarminy, recently conducted an overview of all the major blue light filtering eyewear products on the market. Glarminy conducted a review based the number of different blue blocking lenses and spectral transmittance specifications. They considered the following products:

We are happy to note that Blue Block Glasses did very well on the ranking metrics. We scored 14 out of 36 and were ranked the 8th under the recommendations with a...

Scientists have long known that sleep and mental are interconnected. A recent study shows that using blue light filtering eyewear in the evening hours could improve mental health.

Sleep and Mental Health

First some facts on sleep. Based on a 2016 survey of 2000 Canadian adults [1]:

These are alarming statistics and indicate that sleep related problems are increasing in severity.

Mental health issues are also on the rise, a recent study showed 20% of Canadians would personally experience a mental health illness in their lifetime, and approximately 8% of adults would experience major depression at some time in their lives [2].

The prevailing and longstanding view is that sleep problems are often the causes and symptoms of psychiatric disorders. However, growing evidence is suggesting that the relationship between sleep and mental health is more complex, and includes bi-directional causation. Recent studies...

If you sleep for about 8 hours per night, it means you will spend approximately 229,961 hours or 26.2 years of your life asleep! That is very a long time. Yet if you ask people a basic question: why do you sleep? you probably won’t get a satisfactory answer. This article is part of a series called “Sleep 101” that aims to answer some common questions people have about sleep.

What are the benefits of sleep?

To understand the purpose of sleep, we start by looking at it's function and the underlying biological changes that occur during sleep.

What is the function of sleep?

Although we are still not exactly sure why we sleep there are a few main theories that are supported within the scientific and medical communities.

A key function associated with sleep is Memory Consolidation, which refers to the formation of long-term memories as we sleep [1]. As neurons build connections with other...

Since our blog post titled ‘How Effective is your Blue Light Filter - Test Your Glasses with this Graphic’ we’ve received a lot of questions from people curious to learn more. Often times, people have purchased glasses from a source and are not certain if they are truly blue light filtering and if they are – how effective.

So we decided to design another graphic to help our readers test their glasses. But first, we’ll go through a little background on how color is displayed and perceived. The image below illustrates a simple Red Green Blue (RGB) color model that most should be familiar with.

Source : Wikimedia Commons

The above image shows an...

Almost 35% of Canadian children suffer from some type of sleep related issue. Common sleep conditions are pediatric insomnia, delayed sleep onset, frequent night awakenings and difficulty falling asleep or returning to sleep. 

Use of electronic devices before bed time is known to cause sleep disruption 

In order to better understand how parents address these issues, The Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) conducted a survey in 2015 titled  The Usage of Sleep-Promoting Medication in Children. They asked parents and caregivers about their use of both over-the-counter and prescription medication in aiding their child with sleep.

Out of 346 survey responses:

• 21.4% of parents admitted using over-the-counter melatonin...

We received a mention recently in the Santiva Chronicle. If you have time, we'd recommend reading through the article as it provides an easy to follow summary of the role blue light plays in impacting your sleep. In addition, there are some great articles that describe why electronics are such a bad idea in the bedroom.

As Thanksgiving approaches, every year I’m asked about tryptophan and sleep. It seems to make sense to people that turkey induces sleep because it has tryptophan and on Thanksgiving people are sleepy. Not so fast! People are sleepy on Thanksgiving not because of turkey alone. It’s because a person may have 5 servings of turkey, 4 side dishes, 3 slices of pie, 2 glasses of wine (maybe reverse the order), and 1 additional serving of turkey as they stand around and pick at what's left of the carved turkey.

If turkey was the magic link for sleep it would be illegal to...

As we've said before - proper sleep hygiene is just one part of your overall healthy lifestyle. There's so much more you should do - from exercising regularly to eating the right foods at the right times.

That's why we're so excited that our Blue Block Glasses were featured in a recent episode of 6 Things for Awesome Health, over at Healthful Pursuit.  

In the feature, Leanne talks about how light could be impacting your sleep, your health and how she uses the glasses after coming home in the evening. 

When you have a few minutes, we'd recommend checking the rest of the series - called What Leanne Loves  - it's entertaining, informative, and could help you discover other products you may love!  

Leanne Vogel from HealthfulPursuit.com is a Holistic Nutritionist...

Recently we received a question: how should colours appear when blue light is filtered? We took this question and turned it into an inforgraphic!

This post covers back-lit devices that emit blue light, like phones and laptops. The perception and recognition of blue objects will be covered at a later date. 

 All images covered under Wikimedia creative common licence, unless specified. 

Credit to PiktoChart for design tools.