Blue Light Improves Brain Function and Focus Better Than Coffee

Can blue light really perform better than coffee at improving our brain function and focus? A recent study by researchers in Sweden, Germany and Canada have come up with results that proves just this. Previous research has been done in the past for this subject at hand but the results were not quite the same. The past research stated, exposure to blue light can obstruct the natural sleep cycle by interfering with hormone production. The most recent study I mentioned before found completely different results that were in fact the opposite of that. The new study explains in terms how it affects brain and motor function. According to the latest data, exposure to blue light not only helps improve focus, even during present distractions, but also advances alertness and overall psychomotor function. To arrive with these results a set of experiments were performed on 21 healthy individuals. These 21 individuals were instructed to perform a psychomotor vigilance test on a computer, before and after undergoing a series of four randomly assigned trial conditions. These conditions being that each individual be exposed to the following: Blue light and a placebo, White light and placebo, Blue light and 240 mg of caffeine, and white light and 240 mg of caffeine. 

The results found that in both instances where the individuals were exposed to blue light and 240 mg of caffeine and blue light and a placebo, they experienced enhanced accuracy when taking a visual reaction test that required making a decision, to that of the white light groups. Not only were these individuals more equipped to make a decision but they responded faster as well. Those in the blue light only group showed improved accuracy and outperformed those in the caffeine only group when both congruent and incongruent distractions were put before them, according to the experimenters and naturalnews.com. Visual reaction performance was also dramatically improved in the blue light only group, especially among participants with blue colored eyes.

Blue light was also found to help treat pain and improve brain function in blind individuals, according to Doctors at the University Hospital of Heidelberg in Germany. There is a study written on more of this topic of blue light improving cognitive brain function by authors from the University of Montreal in Quebec, Canada. It can be read in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Sources include:

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:파랑_발광_다이오드.JPG

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Iris_close-up.jpg