You may have heard that gazing at your smartphone at bed time is bad for you but understanding how a simple phone screen can interfere with our body’s natural rhythms is another matter.
So how does a looking at your phone at bedtime impact on your sleep?
The first thing to look at is the way we increasingly use smart phones to organise our lives from work to keeping in touch with friends on social media. This often leads to the temptation of checking emails and status updates before going to sleep. A quick glance through social posts and work emails can often turn into hours of time that could be spent getting a good night’s sleep.
Even if this screen time is reduced smart phones can damage sleep in other ways. The way to achieve a good night’s sleep is to prepare an environment that promotes restfulness. This includes the low natural light, which is something a bright mobile phone screen acts against.
Mobile phone screen displays use LED lighting which is bright blue and while this sort of light can actually be beneficial in making us more alert during the day, this type of light has the opposite impact at bed time. It also suppresses an important sleep hormone called melatonin which can lead to trouble sleeping and even insomnia in some people.
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