Welcome to the positive corner of the internet. Every weekday, we make sense of the confusing world of wellness by analyzing the headlines, simplifying the latest research, and offering quick tips designed to make you healthier in less than 5 minutes. If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free daily email here.
Today’s Health Upgrade
Is your vision in danger?
The pill that fights alcohol cravings
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Minimum exercise, maximum health protection
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Health
Is Blue Light Bad For Your Eyes?
Blue-light filtering glasses have gained popularity for their potential to reduce eye strain, improve sleep quality, and protect macular health.
There’s just one problem.
Research suggests that blue-light-blocking glasses may not protect your eyes and could have downsides if you wear them all day long.
Scientists analyzed 17 randomized controlled trials to better understand whether the glasses help protect your vision. Overall, the studies found that blue-light-blocking glasses do not reduce eye strain or improve eye health.
In fact, the lead research went as far as to say, “There is low-certainty evidence suggesting there may be no advantage with using blue light-filtering spectacle lenses to reduce eye strain compared to standard lenses that don’t filter blue light.”
That’s because the blue light from your devices is not strong enough to harm your eyes. This is great news for everyone who spends too much time on their phones and computers.
If you’re worried about your eye health, blue light isn’t the issue — it’s a lack of blinking. When you look at a computer for too long, your eyes adjust, and you start blinking less, which can dehydrate your eyes and cause issues.
To protect the health of your eyes, ophthalmologists recommend the 20-20-20 rule. Take a 20-second break every 20 minutes and look about 20 feet away. This will reduce the strain, improve hydration, and keep your eyes healthy.
If you have blue-light-blocking glasses, the study found modest improvements in sleep quality for those wearing blue-light filtering lenses. But make sure you only use them at night.
Wearing blue light-blocking lenses throughout the day can hurt your circadian rhythm (it’s called entrainment) because your body doesn’t know when to produce melatonin. If you thought falling asleep was already difficult, this can make things much worse.
If you don’t get the glasses, adjust the settings on your phone to dial down the blue light (on the iPhone go to Settings, Display & Brightness, and select Night Shift). Or, just cut off technology about one to two hours before you sleep.
On Our Radar
The Pill That Fights Alcohol Cravings
Many people buy over-the-counter pills to help counter the effects of hangovers. However, scientists are focused on pills that can prevent you from drinking in the first place.
Research suggests that Naltrexone could help fight alcoholism and reduce binge-drinking behaviors.
Naltrexone isn’t a new medication — it’s been used since the 90’s to help fight opioid addiction. But more recently, scientists discovered that it might have a similar effect on alcohol.
Studies have found that for people who struggle with alcohol addiction, a 12-week program on Naltrexone led to a lower percentage of drinking days, fewer drinks per day, longer times to relapse, more days of abstinence, and lower total alcohol consumption during treatment.
The most recent research suggests the benefits could be instant. Scientists analyzed the effects of a single dose used the night before drinking. Participants who took the medication before a night out drank less overall and were less likely to binge drink.
And the results did not appear to depend on continued medication use. Those who used the pill in situations where they were prone to drink still drank less six months after they stopped taking the medication.
Naltrexone appears to block the “buzz” and pleasure of drinking, which means it can curb cravings and make alcohol less enjoyable.
More research is needed, but it’s a positive sign for people who struggle with alcoholism as a short-term support system that could lead to long-term positive behavioral change.
Fitness
Minimum Exercise, Maximum Health Protection
Being a weekend warrior might do more for your health than you imagine.
New research suggests that exercising as little as one or two days per week is enough to reduce your risk of dementia, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, depression, and anxiety by up to 45 percent.
Scientists studied the behaviors of more than 80,000 adults and analyzed the health benefits of those who perform more than 50 percent of their weekly exercise in just one or two days per week. To be clear, we don’t recommend exercising that infrequently. But life doesn’t always go the way you want. And even if your week gets away from you, or you can only exercise a couple of days per week, showing up and finding a way to do something still makes a difference.
The catch? To achieve the health benefits, you must hit the recommended minimum of 150 minutes of “moderate to vigorous” activity per week, even if it’s consolidated into a couple of days. So it doesn’t matter if you split that time with mini-workouts throughout the week or do two longer “weekend warrior” sessions.
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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell
