Are you spending a little extra screen time on your devices for those Zoom meetings, family video calls or bingeing on the latest IG Live content? We know the feeling. Sadly, as much as whiling away the time during lockdown this way is a plus, the effect it's having on your skin is not.
The LED screens on our devices emit a high-energy visible light (HEV), or blue light, which not only disrupts your body's ability to make the sleep-inducing hormone, melatonin, but also the skin's ability to regenerate properly overnight. This leads to premature signs of ageing and sleep deprivation.
“As we are constantly exposed to light, all the frequencies of light have the potential to damage skin, so we have to protect daily,” says Dr Bradley Wagemaker, medical director at Lamelle Research Laboratories. That's why it is important to religiously apply moisturisers with antioxidant, SPF formulas and light filters that will protect skin from blue light damage.
Other practical things to enforce are reducing your screen time throughout the day and activating your night mode, which you can set the time period for, so that your phone screen light dims from a bright cool light to a warmer yellow light and reminds you to take a break or sleep.
