The iPhone’s Newest iOS Update Has One Key Feature That Could Prevent Serious Health Issues

March 22, 2016

In recent years, there has been more studies supporting the fact that exposure to light at night has serious consequences.

Studies have shown that viewing your smartphone or laptop at night suppresses the body’s production of melatonin, which can affect sleep quality and the way you function the next day. Aside from that, it is also linked to serious health issues. According to the Harvard Health Letter:

“Study after study has linked working the night shift and exposure to light at night to several types of cancer (breast, prostate), diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. It’s not exactly clear why nighttime light exposure seems to be so bad for us. But we do know that exposure to light suppresses the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that influences circadian rhythms, and there’s some experimental evidence (it’s very preliminary) that lower melatonin levels might explain the association with cancer.”

While being exposed to any type of light at night suppresses the secretion of melatonin, blue light has been proven to be the most potent, according to the Harvard Health Letter.

In Apple’s recent iOS update for the iPhone, there’s a key feature that limits the user’s exposure to blue light at night. It’s called “Night Shift” and it adjusts the color temperature of your iPhone display depending on the time of day to decrease blue light exposure before bedtime.

Accessing the feature is easy: go to Settings —> Display & Brightness —> Night Shift. The schedule is set to sunrise to sunset by default, but you can adjust the time to tailor it to your unique schedule.

You can also access the feature using the iOS control center by swiping up from the bottom of your iPhone screen.

Unfortunately, the feature doesn’t work when the iPhone is on low power mode, but 9to5Mac has discovered a quick workaround for it in the video below.

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