The Light Our Bodies Never Evolved For

Hey friends, Gubba here.

Want to know something crazy? I grew up as technology was erupting, so I have had a phone and a computer from a very young age. Many late nights up on the computer chatting away with online friends staring into the blaring light of the computer. And many late nights staring into a cell phone as a teenager.

I had NO idea about the damage of blue light, no one did really. Except maybe the top elite who pushed it through knowing what kind of havoc it would erupt on society.

Now, I can't stand it.

You’re probably reading this article under a glow that feels completely normal, the cool, crisp light of a phone, laptop, or LED bulb. It’s everywhere now. In your pocket. Above your kitchen table (I just replaced mine above my kitchen table.) In your bathroom mirror. At the grocery store checkout. Even on your car’s dashboard.

We live under a constant wash of artificial blue light, so familiar it feels harmless. But here’s the truth: our biology was never designed for this kind of exposure. Not at these intensities. Not for this many hours. And certainly not after sunset.

Most people know blue light can disrupt sleep, but the deeper story is far more expansive. Blue light touches almost every system in your body, your hormones, mood, metabolism, skin health, circadian rhythm, and even the way your cells produce energy. And while it feels like a subtle influence in the moment, the cumulative effects are profound.

I personally think it's one big conspiracy, but you know me...

Blue light is shaping how you feel, look, age, digest, think, and recover… and if you're like most people, you have no idea it’s happening.

Let’s pull back the curtain and explore the effects of blue light you don’t know about — the ones hiding beneath the surface of modern life.

What Is Blue Light, Really? It’s Not the Enemy — It’s the Context

Blue light naturally exists in sunlight. In fact, our bodies rely on it. When those wavelengths enter your eyes in the morning, they send a powerful signal to your brain:

Wake up. Energize. Be alert. The day has begun.

Have you ever tried sun gazing in the morning? I do it when I catch the sun coming over the horizon, and I feel like it has helped my eyes so much. But again, we were told not to look at the sun, lol.

During daytime, blue light is beneficial. It keeps your circadian rhythm aligned and helps regulate your hormones, mood, appetite, and energy.

But here’s the key distinction: sunlight contains a full spectrum of wavelengths, red, infrared, violet, ultraviolet, each balancing the others. Artificial light does not.

Screens and LEDs emit intense, isolated blue wavelengths without the balancing red and infrared tones the sun naturally provides. Under these artificial lights, your brain gets a misleading message, one that says “midday sunlight” even when the real sun set hours ago.

Your biology hears the signal.

And it reacts accordingly.

Unfortunately, many late nights of staring at a screen, I did a number on my body, but all of it can be reversed!

Blue Light and Sleep: Where Most People Stop (But Shouldn’t)

Yes, blue light disrupts melatonin production. But the way it does this, and the consequences that follow, go far beyond poor sleep.

When blue light hits your eyes after sunset, it halts melatonin production almost instantly. This isn’t a small dip. Research shows melatonin can be delayed by hours.

That means your body isn’t simply “less sleepy”, it’s physiologically locked out of its nightly repair cycle.

Isn't it wild that all of these new-age products are supposed to be revolutionary, but instead, they just destroy our bodies?

Melatonin is not a “sleep hormone” in the simplistic way it’s often described. It is also an antioxidant, an anti-inflammatory molecule, a mitochondrial protector, and a regulator of reproductive and metabolic hormones. When blue light shuts melatonin down at night, your body loses access to one of its most powerful self-repair tools.

This is why screens at night don’t only cause insomnia. They ripple into hormonal imbalance, sluggish metabolism, nighttime cravings, and systemic inflammation, often without you realizing blue light is one of the problems in the concoction of modern day garbage like the standard American diet and so on.

Blue Light and Metabolism: The Silent Influence on Your Hunger and Weight

This is one of the most surprising effects, and rarely discussed.

Your metabolism doesn’t run on calories alone. It runs on circadian cues.

Your body isn't just tracking what you eat, it's tracking when you eat and what light exposure surrounds that eating. When you look at a screen at night, your body interprets the bright blue light as daytime and shifts into “energy-active mode.”

Seriously, our bodies and cycles are amazing. Our body is programmed to know what to do!

This can lead to sudden evening hunger, random carb cravings, impaired glucose regulation, elevated nighttime cortisol, and difficulty burning fat efficiently.
Who benefits? Big Pharma of course. Because you head to the doctor, they aren't trained to diagnose blue light toxicity and instead prescribe an onslaught of sludge. The cycle continues...

You may have noticed that scrolling at night often leads to mindless snacking, that’s not lack of discipline. That’s biology being tricked.

Your hunger hormones respond to blue light long before you realize it’s happening.

Blue Light and the Brain: The Mood Disruptor No One Warned You About

Have you ever felt emotionally flat after hours on your phone?

Or oddly anxious?

Or overstimulated, but also mentally drained?

Blue light plays a major role in shaping your emotional state.

Your retina contains specialized cells that communicate directly with your brain’s master clock, bypassing conscious thought. When blue light hits these cells at night, your brain shifts away from rest-and-repair mode and into alert, stress-responsive activity.

This often results in tension that seems to come out of nowhere, difficulty winding down, irritability, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, and emotional volatility

Sounds familiar right? Almost like the thing children are diagnosed with frequentyly (ADHD) and put onto controlled drugs for. What do these children sit under for hours a day at school?

Hmm...

These aren’t personality quirks, they are light exposure effects.

The modern emotional landscape is heavily influenced by devices that glow inches from our faces. And in an era where mental health struggles are skyrocketing, the impact of artificial light deserves far more attention.

Blue Light and Visual Fatigue: It’s Not Your Eyes — It’s Your Nervous System

Most people assume staring at screens simply strains their eyes.

But it goes much deeper.

Your eyes have photoreceptors specifically designed to detect blue light, and they connect directly to your brain’s internal clock. When these receptors are overstimulated, your nervous system becomes overwhelmed.

That feeling of your eyes burning or your head pounding after a screen-heavy day isn’t just ocular fatigue, it's neurological overload. Your brain is being flooded with daylight signals long after sunset, disrupting focus, clarity, and cognitive calm.

I have dealt with this as a lot of my work has been done in front of a computer. My eyes would get so strained that they would have thickness and little veins form on them. Looking back, my body was trying to heal and deal with the stress. So sad to think about!

This is why you feel fried, unfocused, or even panicky after too much screen exposure.

Blue Light and Skin: The Aging Effect Most People Don’t Know About

Here’s a shocker: blue light penetrates deeper into the skin than UVB rays.

Artificial blue light increases free radicals in the skin, accelerates collagen breakdown, worsens hyperpigmentation, and contributes to acne and redness. It also reduces melatonin production within the skin itself, yes, your skin produces melatonin, which interferes with its nighttime repair processes.

This is why digital-age skin often looks dull, inflamed, uneven, and prematurely aged.

It’s not just stress, diet, or hormones, it's the glow of your screens.

The thinnest, most delicate skin, right around the eyes, is also the most exposed to blue light. That’s why puffiness, fine lines, and pigmentation often appear there first.

The modern skin-aging process is as much about light exposure as it is about genetics or skincare products.

If you want to repair your skin, start with my tallow balm moisturizer. This is where I started in my natural skincare journey and just my tallow alone has helped repair the damage to my skin.

Blue Light and Circadian Rhythm: The Master Clock Disruption Most People Ignore

Your circadian rhythm is the master conductor of your biology.

It controls your hormones, mood cycles, blood sugar, digestion, immune function, and the nightly repair of your cells.

When your eyes receive blue light at night, your circadian rhythm becomes confused. And when your internal timekeeping is off, every single process in your body misfires.

This is why people living in a screen-heavy, LED-lit world often feel tired upon waking, wired at night, foggy during the day, hormonally unpredictable, constantly inflamed, prone to digestive issues, and emotionally unstable.

Seriously, when you start to distance yourself from blue light and replace your LED bulbs with incandescents, you will SEE for yourself that this is all true. I have personally felt the difference.

You're not broken, your clock is.

Modern life is chronically out of sync with natural light cycles, and the result is widespread metabolic, hormonal, and emotional imbalance.

Blue Light and Inflammation: The Hidden Pathway to Chronic Fatigue

Artificial blue light raises inflammation indirectly by suppressing melatonin.

Melatonin is one of the body’s most powerful anti-inflammatory molecules. When blue light is present, melatonin cannot perform its nightly job, clearing out inflammatory waste, restoring cellular integrity, and calming oxidative stress.

This is why people who spend evenings under bright lights often feel stiff in the morning, inflamed without explanation, achy or tense, sensitive to stress, and unable to recover from exercise.

This is why I gua sha and practice lymphatic drainage with my gua sha set every morning and evening. As much as I try to avoid blue light, I can't avoid it all of the time, but I notice the toll now as I am in tune with my body. 

Inflammation isn’t random.

It’s often a light-timing problem.

Blue Light and Mitochondria: The Cellular Energy Disruptor

This might be the most important, and least understood, effect of all.

Your mitochondria depend on natural light cues to regulate energy production.

Morning sunlight boosts metabolic activity. Evening darkness signals repair.
But when artificial blue light floods your system at night, your mitochondria get confused. They receive mixed signals, leading to poor energy output and oxidative stress. Over time, this manifests as low energy, fatigue upon waking, slower recovery, lowered immunity, and premature aging.

The modern energy crisis is a circadian crisis, not just a nutritional one.

How to Protect Yourself Without Living in a Cave

The solution isn’t to abandon technology. It’s to restore intentionality.

Your body responds beautifully to small shifts.

Spending a few minutes in morning sunlight can reset your rhythm for the entire day. Do it barefoot! Seriously, grounding in the morning sun is restorative and healing.

Dimming lights after sunset signals your body to wind down. Get rid of those LED bulbs ASAP!

Switching to warm-toned bulbs in the evening reduces circadian confusion.

Allowing your eyes to experience natural daylight without sunglasses trains your internal clock more effectively than any supplement. I would get rid of the sunglasses altogether to be honest.

Your body is eager to return to alignment.

You just have to give it the right cues.

Frequently Asked Questions About Blue Light

Why is nighttime blue light so harmful compared to daytime exposure?

Because your biology interprets blue light as daytime. After sunset, this signal disrupts melatonin, hormones, and the circadian rhythm, which controls nearly every system in the body.

Does blue light cause long-term skin damage?

Yes. Blue light triggers oxidative stress, contributes to pigmentation, and accelerates aging, especially with chronic exposure from screens. Try one of my tallow balms to get your skin back on track.

If blue light is natural in sunlight, why is artificial blue light harmful?

Sunlight includes red and infrared wavelengths that counterbalance blue light’s oxidative effects. Artificial blue light lacks that natural balance, making it more intense and disruptive.

Can reducing blue light improve mental health?

Absolutely. Decreasing nighttime blue light can stabilize cortisol rhythms, support serotonin production, and reduce nervous system overstimulation, all of which influence mood.

Do screen filters or “night mode” actually help?

Yes. They lessen blue wavelengths significantly, especially in the evening. But pairing them with dim lighting and reduced screen time before bed amplifies the benefit.