Special glasses that protect the eyes from the blue light emitted by smartphones could help tech-obsessed youths sleep better at night, researchers said. Dutch researchers analyzing the screen time effects on the teenager sleep pattern found that those who are glued to their phones for longer time were likely to struggle to sleep restfully.

But, switching off the screen in the evening and before the bed resulted in the reversing of these effects. A similar effect was achieved by wearing special glasses that bar the blue light which is believed to disturb the body’s internal clock, from hitting the eyes.

Disturbed sleep effects memory and concentration, and this can leave a strong impression on children’s learning, and in the longer term, it has been leading to higher rates of heart diseases, obesity, and cancer.

“Adolescents increasingly spend more time on devices with screens and sleep complaints are frequent in this age group.” said Dr Dirk Jan Stenvers from the Amsterdam University Medical Centre,. “Here we show very simply that these sleep complaints can be easily reversed by minimizing evening screen use or exposure to blue light.”, he added

“The results suggest that wearing blue-light-blocking glasses may reduce the impact of frequent screen use on adolescents’ sleep.”, said Dr Iroise Dumontheil from Birkbeck. “Particularly interesting is that wearing these glasses had a similar effect to avoiding screen use completely, both allowing adolescents to fall asleep and wake up earlier.”