From UK to Vancouver: My Secret Weapon Against Jet Lag and Sleepless Nights

Posted on by J.J. Hamilton

Last week, I spent the May half-term break in Vancouver. I saw black bears; I saw grizzly bears; I saw polar bears (that last one was on a cardboard cut-out) and I tried to breathe in as many of the mountains as possible. I think I might have averaged about 20,000 steps a day as I attempted to explore every inch that the beautiful surroundings had to offer.

Canada was a very long journey to make for just seven days of exploration, so I wanted to get the most out of this holiday. That meant filling each hour with meaning and making every second productive. Rather than productive work, my productivity was limited to time management. If I didn’t plan the outward journey carefully, my days could drift away while I waste time catching up on the sleep that I’d missed throughout the trip to get there.

Worse still, the jet-lag coming back would leave me practically incapable of functioning in my day job as a teacher.

So, I made a plan.

Step 1: catch an early-morning flight to Frankfurt.

Step 2: transfer onto a flight bound for Canada. Dread the total flight time of just under 10 hours.

Step 3: Land, feeling a little rested, and a little ready for a nap. If I slept too much on board, I’d be up until some ungodly hour. Too few hours and I’d join the infected cast of The Last of Us, cursed to miss nearly the whole of my first day there.

Step 4: Explore Vancouver without falling asleep. If I planned to go to bed at 10pm that night, my body would think it was 6am the next morning in British time. How was I going to manage staying up for 24 hours, or even longer?

Enter: Gloojo’s red-lens glasses. Here’s how I optimised my sleep schedule for a red-eye flight across the Atlantic.

The science, simplified

First, we need to consider the science behind how these glasses work. Not too long ago, I got really into the idea of prioritising sleep and ensuring that I was doing everything I could to have a sound sleep. That included a consistent nighttime routine; sleeping 7-8 hours consistently, reading a little each night, and avoiding screens where possible.

Not always a total success, but the attempt would be made.

I then came across orange-tinted glasses. I’d heard the rumours, that these would help you drift off, but never took much notice of them. That was until last year, when I experimented with a 30-day challenge of wearing them for a couple of hours before bed each night. Lo and behold, what a difference it made. Your results may vary, but my sleep data suggested an improvement in how I’d slept. It was progress, but I yearned for more.

It wasn’t long before Gloojo, a company offering a similar experience, got in touch. They sent a pair of their red-tinted specs to try alongside an honest review if I liked them. Well, the minute they perched upon my nose, the effect was striking. Imagine you’re in a sci-fi movie, where everyone perpetually lives in sunset; Dune, but several volcanoes have exploded in the background – that’s what it’s like to wear these glasses. You’re not just colouring everything so that it’s slightly orange; you’re making things red.

But what’s the science behind the magic of these glasses? How do they work?

Almost constantly, we’re bombarded by blue light from our phones, tablets, laptops and TVs. This blue light can feel particularly harmful in the evenings, since it plays havoc with our natural circadian rhythm, responsible for regulating sleep patterns. Blue light tricks our brains into thinking that it’s still daytime, suppressing the production of melatonin, the hormone that tells our bodies that it’s time to wind down and prepare for sleep.

Orange-tinted glasses block a good chunk of this blue light. My glasses worked well, and I’d still recommend them. But red lenses? Red lenses take it to the next level. They block all blue light, as well as green light. While less potent, green light also interferes with melatonin production, so a red lens offers a more comprehensive shut-down for your brain’s sleep signals. Think of it as going from partially drawing your curtains, to getting black-out everything installed in your bedroom.

Keep reading to see how I reached my highest ever sleep score

Upgrading my nighttime routine

For the past two months, I’ve been incorporating red-lens glasses into my wind-down routine. I’ll slip them on at about 9pm, get on with the washing up and finish watching whatever content I’ve opted for that night, and then get into bed and read. Currently, I’m obsessed with Ben Arranovich’s Rivers of London series, which you can catch up by following this link.*

As soon as the glasses go on, my world transforms into a serene, sepia-toned landscape, except with more red. It does take a little getting used to; I remember how jarring they felt the first time that I tried them out. I took them upstairs to look at a set of blue twigs that I own and being wowed that they were doing their job and blocking out all of the blue light emanating from them.

Here’s where the magic really starts to kick in:

  • The wind-down: Unlike the orange glasses, where there was a little lingering ‘alertness’, the red lenses induce a profound sense of calm. It’s not sedation by any means, and it’s not going to sort out insomnia, but instead it’s more like a gradual, gentle unwinding of the day’s tension. My mind, usually a chaotic whirlwind of thoughts and ideas, as well as to-do lists that I need to scribble into my BuJo, starts to quiet. I feel less inclined to pick up my phone, since the addicting blue glare which makes doom scrolling easy is gone. Suddenly, a book or sleep feels much more appealing.
  • The sleep onset: Falling asleep used to be an exercise in patience and frustration. My mind would race, I’d toss and turn, and the clock would tick agonisingly onward. With the Gloojo reds, I’m drifting off within about ten minutes. In Canada, possibly in part due to the jet-lag and exhaustion from a day packed full of activities, I’d fall asleep in half the time. There’s no struggle, no internal monologue, just…sleep.
  • The sleep score: I track my sleep score religiously with a Galaxy Watch 4, which is still going strong after I reviewed it 3 years ago. With the orange glasses, my scores had improved. Since integrating my Gloojo glasses, my scores have shot up. Don’t get me wrong; there are plenty of factors that go into generating a sleep score, such as general restfulness, temperature, and so on. Plus, you might find sleep scores to be total rubbish, in which case this won’t mean very much to you. Equally, there are some out there who do dispute the science, claiming that tinted glasses offer a placebo, and nothing more.

    But I’ve certainly never had a sleep score of 99 before.

    Getting up in the morning feels different, too. I don’t just wake up; I feel refreshed, ready for the day, a real lack of morning fog that desperately used to cling on.

Optimising for a ten-hour flight

Let’s get back on track: my flight to Vancouver. I’m not one for midday naps so, to fall asleep at 4pm, British time, I was going to need to take drastic measures. From the start of the flight, I shoved my glasses onto my face, and caught up on Andor on Disney+ while they served our in-flight meal. Then, after a couple of hours, I was ready to turn off the technology and read.

A quick word of caution: the very deep red tint of these glasses, while effective for blocking blue light and the glare of my tablet, makes it surprisingly difficult to focus on reading in low-level ambient light, which is what you’d expect on a transatlantic flight or when in bed, illuminated by a dim lamp. If you’re not into reading, this won’t bother you, but it’s important to bear in mind that you might be restricted from certain late-night activities. For me, it’s not a deal-breaker, since I can swap to my orange-tinted glasses if needed. But if you’re in the market for only the most effective blocker of blue light, you might find this a hard pill to swallow.

With that being said, I fell asleep within minutes. I aimed for a couple of hours of shut-eye, so that I wouldn’t be messing with my sleep schedule too much, and got just that.

Could other factors, such as my sleeping mask and noise-cancelling headphones, impact this? Sure. But I am all for optimising my sleep routine, which means trying everything that I can to help with dropping off.

I also wore them on the plane journey home, from Frankfurt to Birmingham, and fell asleep instantly after keeping them on during my layover. While I’d never worn them in public before, I never felt as if I was sticking out; though I did feel a little discombobulated from doing normal activities, being able to see both the very tinted view, and the regular one at the same time outside of the lenses, so I think they serve you best when sat or lying stationary.

If you’re serious about optimising your sleep, struggle to wind down in the evenings, or have a red-eye flight to catch, you’d be silly to not add the Gloojo glasses to your routine. They’ll come equipped with a handy storage case to avoid any scratches while still fitting into your travel bag with ease. These could transform your nightly routine and, by extension, your daily existence, as you begin to feel more fresh and ready for the day.

So, ditch the blue light, embrace the red glow, and prepare for a deeper, more restorative, sleep experience. Your future, well-rested self, will thank you.

Before you go, check them out at the below links, using the discount code joshvip15 to get 15% off site-wide.

Where to get them:

*Any links marked with an asterisk are affiliate links, and I might earn a small kickback if you use them to order the advertised product, at no extra cost to you*

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