This Is Why You Shouldn’t Check Your Smartphones Before You Sleep.
This Is Why You Shouldn’t Check Your Smartphones Before You Sleep.
Whether you’re selecting your podcast to go to sleep or sending your distant love interest a good night message.Looking at your smartphone minutes before you go to sleep can affect your sleep quality.
A growing body of research suggests all the screentime before bedtime may be eating away at our sleep.
Studies have shown that being exposed to the blue-and-white light given off by smartphones, laptops, and other electronic gadgets at night prevent our brains from releasing melatonin, a hormone that tells our bodies it’s nighttime. Time for bodies to reset, recharge, detox and be ready for the next day at its optimum.
The photons emitted from your smartphones into your eyes tell your brains that it’s still not the time to go to sleep. This means it’ll take you longer to fall asleep. And many years of delaying sleep, researchers think, can mess with our internal body clocks.
A recent study of 844 Flemish adults between the age of 18–94 years old, participated in a survey about electronic media use and sleep habits. They self-reported sleep quality, daytime fatigue and insomnia were measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), the Fatigue Assessment Scale (FAS) and the Bergen Insomnia Scale (BIS), respectively.
The result found that using a mobile phone after turning the lights off was associated with worse sleep quality, more insomnia, and more symptoms of fatigue though it’s unclear from this research whether using a phone directly causes sleep problems. Furthermore, lack of sleep or sleep deprivation has dangerous repercussions in our overall health.
Whether you’re an adult or have teenagers who have smartphones in your bedroom, it’s maybe time to segregate your bedroom as a place for sleep and rest. Leave your smartphones and other electronics outside, get organised and finish all the work or messages that need to send before you step into your bedroom. Some experts suggest not using our devices for roughly an hour before bed could help us fall asleep faster.
In the short video below by BI Science, shows what happens to your body and brain when you check your smartphone before bed:
Maybe it’s time to take your sleep moe seriously.