Do led grow lights damage your eyes

Spending long hours working under intense indoor grow tent lighting can have long-term and damaging effects on your eyesight. Just because the light works well for your plants, doesn’t mean it’s equally as beneficial to your vision.
Many growers have complained about the slow decline in their eyesight after growing indoors for much of their career.
You may have started to see dark spots, to experience frequent headaches, or maybe you’re finding it increasingly hard to read the fine print, even with your reading glasses on. Is your declining vision really due to the expensive light fixtures you’ve spent so much money to install?
Unfortunately for indoor-growers of all kinds, grow lights just weren’t developed for our human eyes. Both HPS and LED styles of indoor lights were designed to manipulate the natural light spectrum, increase the intensity of the sun’s rays, and achieve optimal indoor growing conditions.
They were not designed with the sensitive human eye in mind. Indoor lights turn up the intensity and refine the light spectrum to stimulate plant growth.
Just as the outdoor growers don’t stare straight into the sun, an indoor grower should always avoid looking directly into any intense light source. Both LED or HPS can still cause immediate and irreparable damage if the exposure is too intense. It's crucial to take special precautions when growing marijuana indoors, long-term exposure may cause series vision damage.
Are led grow lights harmful to human eyes?
There are several factors that affect the safety of any grow lights: intensity, wavelength and duration. Intense lights will always damage your eyes, regardless of what wavelength that the lights release and the duration. Intense lights can cause burns on the skin, and a “sunburn” on the retinas will interfere with your ability to see.
A good example would be staring at the bright light in your lamp. A brief glance may cause odd patterns in your vision as you blink. Stare for a long time, and it could damage your eyes. The same is true of any bright light, LED or conventional. At the same time, very bright lights too close to the plants could “sunburn” them, too. Have the lights at the right distance from the plants to avoid this.
Most wavelengths are not harmful. However, LED grow lights that put out ultraviolet light are harmful to your eyes. This includes but isn’t limited to fluorescent LED grow lights, HPS grow lights and metal halide grow lights. Any blue light could emit ultraviolet light. You can tell if the UV output is high if you’re getting a tan while working under your grow lights. On the flipside, pure red lights aren’t harmful unless at a very high intensity.
One way to protect yourself is to minimize the time spent under LED grow lights. Another is to wear protective glasses when under the lights or working around them. Yet another layer of protection is to keep the grow lights inside of grow tents that seal in the light.
Increasingly the go-to lighting option for indoor growing, LEDs are popular because many cater specifically to the light spectrums needed during different stages of cannabis growth. The initial investment is not as prohibitive as it once was, and the overall cost savings in energy consumption are incomparable to the conventional HPS lights.
If LEDs are so good for the environment, why are they bad for your vision? Perhaps you’ve heard about the growing problem of blue light, as emitted from our cell phones and computer screens?
Blue light, which falls between 380 nm and 500 nm on the light spectrum, is linked to many health issues. Blue is also crucial for the vegetative stage of growth and is the primary spectrum produced by most LED grow lights.
Overexposure to blue light is linked to retina, macula and photoreceptors damage. On top of this, it influences the human sleep cycle in a way that researchers are just now coming to understand.
If you spend hours under blue light, and this is especially true for just before you go to bed, your bodies natural melatonin production gets thrown out of whack.
Effects of LED Grow Lights on Human Eyes
Lights should have a direct effect on the human eye, and no exception for LED lights. So, let’s discuss the effect of LED grow lights on human eyes anyway-
The three factors that you’ve to understand there are-
Light intensity
Light wavelength and
Light duration.
First of all, bright and intense light causes temporary damage to human sight. Take a simple example on this- if you look for a long time to a shiny and bright table lamp, your vision will be temporarily in a dilemma. Similarly, if you work under intense grow light for long, it will affect that-wise.
When it comes to wavelengths, most of them are not badly effective. But beware of the LED lights that emit UV lights, as they are harmful for the eyes and skin.
Also, make sure that your time spent under the light is minimal. During the light cycle, spend as less time as possible under the LED lights in your grow tent.

Precautions and general good practises while using grow lights
In our finding, we discovered that while while all the experts suggests that LED grow lights are completely safe for use, there is still more work to be done, when it comes to research on exposure to excess blue light, or how much blue light is harmful. Therefore, here are a few tips that will help you remain additionally protected and work without any worries.
Avoid looking directly into grow lights, especially for an extended period of time
If you have to work under grow lights for a long time, especially during harvest, you may consider using a pair of grow room glasses
If you have to work under grow lights for a long time, try and wear good overalls and avoid too much exposed skin
If you have to work under grow lights for a long time, try to ensure that these are during daylight hours, so that your sleep is not impeeded
If your lifestyle includes prolonged exposure to TV, laptops, mobile phone screens, then try and consume these in moderation for prolonged eye health
Over the counter eye drops have a general benefit of cleansing the eyes and keeping them moist and hydrated
Healthy sleep also ensures that, like all other parts of the body, our eyes get adequate rest and time to repair and regenerate