YOUR PHONE VS SLEEP
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| Melatonin |
When daylight, which is blue light, hits the back of your eyes in the morning, your brain stops producing melatonin. You feel awake and ready to start your day. When blue light fades (and is replaced by darkness or the yellow glow of incandescent bulbs), melatonin begins to be released again.
Guess what else radiates blue light? Screens. When we use our phones or tablets or computers before bed, their blue light tells our brains that it is daytime and that we should be awake. In other words, when we check our phones at night, we’re giving ourselves jet lag. Screen time, particularly in the hour before bedtime, both keep us up later and harms the quality of our sleep.
But the quality of light is just one way that our phones affect our sleep cycles. Most of the things we do on our phones—reading the news, playing games—are stimulating activities. Imagine how difficult it would be to doze off if all of the people you follow on social media were in the room with you, the television was blaring (loud noise) in the background, and several friends were having a political debate. That’s essentially what you’re doing when you bring your phone into bed with you.
Phones’ effects on sleep are particularly concerning (relating to) when you consider the health consequences of chronic fatigue, which include increased risk of obesity (the condition of being very fat or overweight), diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and even early death.
Indeed, according to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, even short-term sleep deprivation “can affect judgment, mood, ability to learn and retain information, and may increase the risk of serious accidents and injury.” When you’re tired, it’s harder for your brain to filter out distractions. You have poorer self-control. You’re less able to tolerate frustration (). And your brain has difficulty deciding what’s important to pay attention to and what’s not.
Oh, and if you’re thinking that this does not apply to you, keep in mind that the more sleep-deprived people are, the more vigorously they may insist that they are not—possibly because their ability to judge their mental state has been impaired (become weak).
Thanks for reading, As Always,
ANKURJIT KALITA
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