Up Your Eye Protection Game With These Cutting-Edge Blue Light Contacts

As a journalist and remote worker, I spend countless hours in front of a screen each day researching, writing, editing, and simply managing my daily tasks. I started wearing blue light glasses about three years ago (pre-pandemic, before it was "cool").

I'm no novice to contact lenses, either. After getting hit in the face with a basketball one too many times in the third grade (I swear, you don't know misery until you've been clocked in the nose while wearing metal frames), it was time to switch to contacts at the ripe old age of 9.

In our overwhelmingly digital world, our eyes are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of increased screen time (screen fatigue, digital eye strain, eye dryness, and increased blue light exposure, to name a few).

Blue light naturally scatters more easily than other light, research scientist Deshanie Rai, Ph.D., FACN, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at OmniActive Health Technologies, previously told mbg. "It reduces contrast, and therefore, the eyes must work harder to see the fine details," Rai explains. 

Reducing our exposure to blue light by limiting our screen time, wearing blue-light-blocking devices (like glasses and contacts) and wearing sunglasses while outdoors to protect our eyes from the biggest source of blue light (the sun), and dimming LED lights in our house (especially around bedtime) is a great place to start.

But as you may have picked up on already, blue light is everywhere—not just in our phones and computer screens. Like Johnson & Johnson, many companies are creating products that aim to reduce our exposure to blue light, but simply wearing blue light devices won't solve all of our eye health problems.

According to optometrist Jeff Anshel, O.D., FAAO, this new technology only serves to perpetuate the misconceptions around what it really takes to protect our eyes from blue light 24/7. "Blue light glasses [and contact lenses] are minimally protective; the best protection is to consume lutein and zeaxanthin,"* Anshel previously told mbg. 

Macular carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin neutralize free radicals and filter blue light, acting as "internal sunglasses" to help protect our eyes from excess exposure that's become increasingly common in our modern, digital world.* 

Our bodies can't make these beneficial carotenoids on their own, so we need to get them from our diet. Lutein- and zeaxanthin-rich food sources include leafy greens, green peas, orange peppers, and avocados.

An even simpler way to ensure you're getting enough of these macular carotenoids? Consider taking a premium supplement with efficacious doses of both.

Johnson & Johnson's blue-light-filtering contacts feature groundbreaking technology to help protect our eyes from 60% of blue light exposure, but it's not quite enough for the technology-obsessed world we live in.