While many of us spend valuable time slathering our skin in lotions and potions and give up much-needed dollars on facials and treatments to keep us glowing, we don’t often factor in the things affecting our skin that are out of our control.
Take air conditioning – a common feature in countless offices that meddles with our complexions, or computer screens – a mainstay of many workers’ lives.
Many don’t know just how negatively looking at a screen for ten hours or more each day can affect our skin.
Speaking to FEMAIL, the Sydney-based skin expert and creator of Better Skin, Better Life, Rebecca Mason, revealed exactly how computer screens are impacting your skin and overall health.
She also explained the steps you can take to stop this from happening.
Speaking to FEMAIL, Sydney-based skin expert and creator of Better Skin, Better Life, Rebecca Mason (pictured), revealed how computer screens are impacting your skin and overall health
Rebecca explained that the blue light emanated from computer screens can impact everything, from our skin to the quality of our sleep, cortisol levels and health (stock image)
According to Rebecca – who founded Better Skin, Better Life after she quit the corporate world to focus on helping others deal with cystic acne, a condition she has struggled with in the past – the main impact computers can have on our skin is that they give us too much exposure to blue light:
‘Blue light is literally what makes the sky blue, it is part of our human biology to access the light to help us regulate our sleep patterns,’ Rebecca told FEMAIL.
‘However, we can become a little over-exposed to blue light, because we access artificial blue light in our digital devices – LED screens and lights, TVs, laptop, computer and phone screens.’
Speaking about her tips for stopping this, Rebecca said you could try a night-time tech detox, dim the lights on your screen or try lenses with blue light blocker components (stock image)
Rebecca explained that overexposure to blue light can affect us in any number of ways, from creating additional cortisol in the body to stopping us from sleeping and even increasing our risk of disease.
‘If we expose ourselves to the blue light in the evening, it is spiking our levels of cortisol as our bodies interpret the light as “it must be morning time, secrete cortisol because we need to get up and do things”,’ she explained.
‘But at night, our production should be at an all time low, giving melatonin a chance to do its job and make us sleepy, and ready for bed.’
The skin expert also said that computer screens will impact your sleep and have a knock-on effect on your skin:
‘You will of course sleep,’ she said. ‘But the quality of your sleep will be significantly impacted when you are sleeping with elevated levels of cortisol.
‘You need high quality sleep to function at your optimum thriving levels. According to Harvard researchers, in the past 50 years there has been a decline in average sleep duration and quality, with adverse consequences on general health.’
Rebecca added that too much time on computer screens ‘and exposure to blue light at night [has been linked] to several types of cancer (breast, prostate) diabetes, heart disease, obesity and an increased risk for depression’.
There are also tools which you can download on the Internet, which see the lighting on your screen darken as the sun sets (stock image)
So how can you quit your night-time scrolling habit and start approaching your technology effectively? Firstly, you can quit it altogether.
‘Is looking at the latest Instagram post of someone’s homemade bone broth more of a priority than the quality of your health and skin?,’ Rebecca asked.
If the answer is no, then she advocates ‘switching off at least an hour before bed’.
On the more wacky side of things, if you want to reduce your exposure to blue light and wear contact lenses, Rebecca said you can ask your optometrist if they have access to a new range of lenses that contain blue light blocker components:
‘The lenses don’t physically look any different, but they do protect your eyes (like un-tinted sunglasses) from the blue light,’ she explained.
Otherwise, you can invest in blue light blocker glasses, which though slightly dorky do help out.
Rebecca also recommends an online tool, I.flux, which sees the lighting on your screen darken as the sun sets.
Alternatively, she said you can just ‘start using natural evening light like candles or dimming the light switcher down to enjoy darker light settings’.
If you decide to embark on a night-time tech detox, Rebecca said it might be of use to find a new creative hobby or get stuck into a good book – anything that will distract you from the habit of aimlessly browsing Facebook and Instagram.
To read more from Rebecca Mason, you can visit her website here.