MSG helps fund sleep research

The MSG is supporting the Guernsey Schools Sleep Project with crucial funding to help deliver a large-scale research project to explore the impact of blue light on young people’s sleep and wellbeing.  

The project, launched by the Sleep Better Live Better (SBLB) Foundation in partnership with the States of Guernsey education psychology department, involves voluntary sleep education and the provision of night-time blue light blocking glasses among adolescents in years 10 to 13 across all of the island’s schools. 

It follows a smaller scale, pilot study conducted by the SBLB Foundation at the Guernsey Grammar School in 2021. The pilot study found that the use of amber lens night-time blue light blocking glasses had an overwhelmingly positive and statistically significant benefit of improving sleep quality, consistency and satisfaction, as well as reducing pre-sleep anxiety and increasing daytime alertness in students and teachers. 

MSG has provided £2000 to the project, which has been put towards purchasing the equipment needed for the trial, including up to 1000 pairs of night-time blue light blocking glasses and up to 100 pairs of clip-on versions for glasses wearers.   

Sleep expert, founder and Chairman of the SBLB Foundation, Daniel White, explained the background to the project: 

“As a teenager, my addiction to computer games and technology resulted in significant overexposure to artificial light at night which hugely damaged my sleep, leading to weight gain, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. My school attendance and ability to concentrate suffered, during arguably the most important years of my school life and as a result I was unable to fulfil my academic potential at the time. These experiences have influenced my motivation to help young people to learn more about why sleep is so important, and the practical steps they can take to start sleeping and feeling better each day. 

“It’s clear from recent research that teenagers’ quality of sleep, mental health and ability to learn and perform well academically has never been under greater strain than it is now. Research suggests that 25 to 50% of children and 30 to 50% of adolescents sleep less than the recommended 8 to 10 hours per night. Sleep is a foundational building block for mental and physical health, so this data has grave implications for all aspects of a child’s learning, behaviour and development. 

“At the core of these issues is an unprecedented increase in technology device use and greater levels of exposure to harmful artificial blue light. This is because when our eyes are exposed to artificial blue light in the evening, the release of sleep hormone melatonin is slowed or halted. This delays our body's ability to transition into relaxation and dysregulates the biological processes associated with rest and recovery that occur at night, leading to negative impacts on all areas of mental and physical health and performance. Children are even more susceptible to the impact of blue light due to having larger pupils and more transparent lenses than adults.” 

As well as exploring the effectiveness of the blue light blocking glasses, which have been demonstrated by prior scientific studies to be a simple, cost-effective first-step intervention for improving sleep outcomes, the project also provided a number of sleep education lessons which Daniel wishes to deliver later to staff and parents as part of a continued health and wellbeing intervention in time. 

Medical Specialist Group consultant paediatrician Dr Clare Betteridge said: “We’re proud to support the SBLB Foundation with this enormously topical and valuable research. We aim to achieve the highest standards of clinical care and the best possible outcomes for our patients. Investing in Daniel and this research could lead to additional effective treatment modalities we can recommend to young people. We look forward to seeing the results.” 

Daniel added: “I am very grateful to all those who have helped to bring my vision for this project to life, including our corporate sponsors and those who have supported through the challenges of launching and running the project. I hope to demonstrate that Guernsey can be the first jurisdiction in the world that is taking steps to genuinely protect health and education of future generations by improving their sleep.” 

Aztec Group and Rossborough Insurance have also provided funding to support the project. The lenses for the blue light blocking glasses were donated by Vivarays. 

Having been approved by Guernsey’s research ethics committee in December, the first phase of the project officially began on 16 January and was conducted over four weeks. Results from the trial are under analysis and more information determining the effectiveness of the interventions will soon be understood and published, with the hope that benefits can be replicated in larger interventions that can benefit more islanders, and possibly further afield.