CLEVELAND — We've all heard that you shouldn’t take your phone or other device with you when you go to bed, but we know it's not that easy.
The 3News Go! team talked to a sleep expert about blue light filters, like "night shift" or "night light" mode that come on most devices.
Michelle Drerup, PsyD is a sleep psychologist and behavioral sleep medicine specialist at the Cleveland Clinic's Sleep Disorders Center. She specializes in treating conditions like insomnia, circadian rhythm disorders, sleep apnea and more.
We asked her if those blue light filters work.
“Those filters don't do anything. We thought they were helpful and they worked, and when they actually looked at it, they do not do what they say they do. I feel really bad because I've been recommending this for patients.”
On its site, the Cleveland Clinic says blue light is everywhere. They say like all colors of light, blue light is absorbed into the eye, but there’s no research to show that it is harmful.
Recent studies actually found that blue light filters may actually trick our brains into thinking it's daytime.
We also asked Drerup about the sleep trackers a lot of people wear, like on a Fitbit or Apple Watch. She said they can give you a general sense of how much you're sleeping, but tend to be more accurate for people who are good sleepers.
Drerup says to get an accurate reading, you need an electroencephalogram (EEG), which actually measures brain activity.