You are well aware that if you don’t get enough sleep, you will wake up feeling groggy and the rest of your day will be a struggle. Your productivity will be limited, and if the poor sleep pattern continues, you will predispose yourself to various diseases.
Most of us need between seven to nine hours of sleep every night in order to maintain a good balance of health. Granted, some may sleep less and still remain in tip-top shape.
Your poor sleep patterns may have nothing to do with the prevailing temperatures, or the discomfort of your mattress or pillow. Unrecognized addiction to your smartphone may be the reason. It has been known for years that the background light emitted by phone screens can make it harder to fall asleep.
Exposure to this light emission before going to sleep can confuse the brain into thinking it’s still daytime and inhibit the natural process of falling asleep.
A recent survey in the UK found that more than a quarter of adults look at their phones within five minutes of going to bed. A further one third will check the pings on their phones if they awaken in the middle of the night.
Some will even go to the extent of reading and responding to emails and texts in the small hours of the night. Such habits do not turn you into a super-responsive geek. On the contrary, you just predispose yourself to preventable ills of sleep deprivation.
How can you tame your phone habits during bedtime? Sleep experts recommend an hour or so of phone-free time before going to bed. You can place your phone out of easy reach whilst asleep. You must resist the temptation to jump out of bed and get across the room if the phone pings though, that wouldn’t do any good to your sleep.
You could even download an app that tracks the time spent on your phone screen, and configure a lockout interval or rewards for staying off your device. You could also switch your phone to a night shift mode, which keeps the screen background less disruptive to sleeping.
But really, you could just switch off the phone and hit the sack nicely...or mute everything so you don’t hear any pings or rings that come up whilst asleep. The Earth will not stop rotating if you don’t instantly respond to incoming texts or emails.
Anything that comes to your phone overnight will still be there when you wake up in the morning. Uninterrupted sleep will make you better prepared for the next day’s tasks, and enhance your overall productivity. The better the quality of your sleep every night, the bigger the rewards for your long-term health.
