In a story of determination and perseverance, 24-year-old Phaedra Simmons has managed to counteract her own biological instincts and condition herself to be unable to sleep without blue light exposure.
Awesome! Let’s not think about how many hours of blue light exposure that took to begin with!
“Looking at blue light before bed has been directly linked to insomnia,” sleep researcher Annie G. DeMille told reporters gathered at the scene. “Well, it’s been linked to insomnia in everyone else. For Phaedra, it seems to be the only way she can fall asleep? We had her come into the lab last week and she simply couldn’t go to bed until she spent at least two hours on Instagram.”
Wow! Did someone say, “medical marvel?” Did they also say, “didn’t know that could happen?”
“I’m a big nighttime procrastinator, so when I climb into bed, I love to spend approximately 150 minutes staring straight at my phone, which is an average of three inches away from my face,” Phaedra told reporters. “I didn’t mean to classically condition myself to be unable to sleep unless I’ve watched every TikTok video until I reach one of those pimple-popping ones, but here we are!”
Scientists suspect that over the course of the past year, by watching videos on her phone at full brightness until she fell asleep, Phaedra has conditioned her own brain to associate blue light with tiredness.
“I have the opposite problem now, where I can’t check my phone when I wake up,” Phaedra continued. “The second those 380 nanometer wavelength rays hit my eyes, I’m out like a light.”
Much like a dog that learns to drool when its owner rings the dinner bell, Phaedra has also learned to drool when she looks at her phone.
“I kept falling asleep with my phone on and drooling in the night,” she explains. “Anyway, now I salivate whenever I get a text.”
Uh, okay! That one sounds less fun!
“In a typical patient, prolonged blue light exposure can damage retinal cells and cause age-related macular degeneration,” said optometrist Peter Dreer. “But in Phaedra, it seems like normal light has started to do that instead, and only blue light exposure can bring her back from the brink. What I’m observing is an evolutionary mutation occurring in real time.”
Sources close to Phaedra confirm she has made a goal not to use her phone for the next month with the hopes it will reset her circadian rhythm. As of press time, she has been unable to sleep for 63 straight hours.
Good luck, girl! You’re a cautionary tale to us all!
