Light Pollution

This one’s interesting. Light pollution? How’s that even a problem? Yeah sure, I see fewer stars at night but it’s not something that’s affecting me.

First of all the overall abundance of city lights that obscure the starry night do more than crashing your one day passion of stargazing. While it may not seem like much, the tint of light in the dark sky can have significant impacts. For starters, it disrupts our circadian rhythm -- the internal process that gets us sleepy and wakes us up on time. This process relies on the way we receive natural light, i.e. bright and blue in the day, orange at sunset, and dark at night. When it becomes dark at night, our bodies produce something called melatonin to help us feel sleepy. But when it isn’t dark enough at night, our bodies suppress the production of melatonin which can lead to several sleep disorders. And sleep disorders have their own set of associated issues including tiredness and irritability (who feels happy about being awake at night anyway, apart from the author of this essay?).

This also affects wildlife, especially the nocturnal animals as the illumination in the night sky can cause a disturbance in their biological processes. This can become the spark to start the disruption of an entire ecosystem. Didn’t seem like much initially did it? (Well, neither did a baby shower until it lit up California, quite contrastingly to what a shower would imply).

Last but not least, there is the light overdose from the plethora of screens around you. Tablets, phones, computers, smart fridges are all blasting your eyes with light. Now here’s something to note; there’s no difference between digital screen light versus normal light. Light is light regardless of the source. What matters is the color of the light. This is similar to the effects of illumination in the night sky. There isn’t any change in the color of the light emitting from the screen, which is largely on the blue spectrum, which makes the body perceive the illusion of daylight, further causing troubling sleep and related disorders discussed above.

Another important point to note is that our eyes are originally wired to be able to focus on objects at different distances, utilizing ciliary muscles to change the lens shape in the eye. However if you focus on only one object at a specific distance over a long period of time, you strain your muscles, which tire out after continuous strain (imagine having to lift a bunch of books, it’s easy to do for a bit but after a long time you get tired!).

Light pollution and its effects are relatively easy to solve though. Using a curved hood on top of street lights with reflective material inside allows more utilization of light which also stays directed down instead of projecting into the sky. For personal screen use, using night shifts to get a yellow tint (or using dark mode like the cool kids) during night helps reduce the exposure to blue light when it’s harmful. While it’s unrealistic to stop using screens altogether in today’s day and age, having a larger screen and as far away as possible helps mitigate having to stress on a near object for large amounts of time. Using the 20-20-20 rule -- look away every 20 minutes on an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds -- is another effective way to reduce the continuous strain on the eyes. Lastly, while it’s hard to stop external sources of light pollution, drawing the curtains at night to have as much darkness as possible (and no usage of phones at night) is a great way to have a restful sleep (please wish the author of the article the same).