Receiving adequate amounts of
sleep is one of the most fundamental areas to help a person’s wellbeing. It is
well known that sleep aids metabolism, alertness and even a person’s mood.
However, travelling across time-zones is one of the most common ways of
disturbing regular sleep patterns, which often results in jet-lag. Now
researchers at Flinders University in Australia claim to have developed green
light glasses that appear to adjust individuals’ circadian rhythms and as such
could be useful to help individuals with their jet-lag.
The glasses work by emitting a
light green light, which is picked up by photoreceptors in our eyes. These
photoreceptors then signal to an area within a persons’ brain responsible for
adjusting the hormones that play a part in regulating sleep patterns. Using
light therapy to correct sleep disturbances in not novel, as studies have
consistently demonstrated how travelling to other time zones as well as working
irregular hours often disturbs this sensitive process that starts in the photoreceptors.
However, this is the first time to our knowledge that glasses have been
developed.
Flinders University is known for
their sleep research department and the developers of these glasses claim it to
be the outcome of 25 years of research. They further argue that this light
therapy may be safer than other alternatives for treating jet lag. However, we are
sceptical about this claim as no clinical trial data has been released.
Similarly, the researchers have recommended that these glasses be used on a
daily basis, which raises concern as to how useful they could be in curing
one-off disruptions after a long journey.
We
are glad to hear that treatments for jet-lag are still being researched however
we would always be cautious to jump to any conclusions of a treatment’s
efficacy without sufficient scientific support that has been peer-reviewed. We
will be on the lookout for further findings in this area in order to evaluate
their implications and will keep our readers updated.