Dangers of Artificial Light (Blue Light)

How Blue Light Affects Sleep, Circadian Rhythms, Hormones, and Biological Stress

Kendall Toerner

Published: November 30, 2025

When unbalanced with red light, blue light poses a potent threat to our cells and health. From digital screens indoor lights, and even modern windows, we are rapidly aging our bodies because of oxidative stress from blue light exposure.

What is “blue light”?

Blue light refers to light sources that have a much higher proportion of blue frequencies than occurs in nature or sunlight.

These blue frequencies are high powered, and our cells in our skin and eyes are not designed to handle these blue frequencies being too high of a proportion compared to other colors.

Why is blue light dangerous?

On it’s own, blue light causes damage through free radical creation, circadian disruption, hormone dysregulation, and artificially increasing blood sugar levels.

Blue light is close to ultraviolet in energy level, being next to violet on the color spectrum.

High energy blue and UV light is always balanced in nature by red and infrared light.

Studies on the dangers of blue light

Balancing blue light with frequencies found naturally in sunlight

It’s essential that strong light like blue light coming from your computer screen, just like ultraviolet light, comes in a “package” that includes red and infrared light, as the sun does at all hours of the day outdoors in nature.

Red/infrared are opposite on the color spectrum from blue and UV light. This is due to their frequencies, where red light is a much lower frequency than blue.

You can improve the amount of infrared light you get year round with an infrared sauna, including the high quality ones made by Saunaspace.

Benefits of invisible infrared light and visible red light:

Supports your cell's mitochondria in producing the endogenous anti-oxidant melatonin via Cytochrome C to protect against blue and UV light [1]
Supports proper functioning of light-sensing opsins like melanopsin in your eyes and skin, which control your circadian rhythm, hormone signaling, and blood sugar levels [2] [3]
Supports proper free radical production from ROS and RNS caused by blue light, allowing cells to maximize repair and cleanup programs autophagy and apoptosis [4]

Blue blocking glasses and red screen filters can help

You can wear blue blocking glasses to block the higher proportion of blue light from screens, indoor lights, and closed windows.

Another option is to use a red color filter on your screen.

The only downside is that both of these options change the colors your eyes can see, reducing the visual appeal and fidelity of what you're viewing.

This is why I developed a product called Bluebalance, which restores the balance of blue and red light frequencies as found in nature from sunlight.

This lets you keep your screen's natural colors for media viewing or color-sensitive creative work.

Still, you can’t avoid many other screens and windows, especially outside of your home. That makes blue blocking glasses a must-have, in the modern world to protect from blue light.