Could Technology Addiction be Affecting Your Sleep?

If you have problems sleeping, your phone may be to blame.

As a mother of four, there are probably about a million things in my life that I could blame for the reason I have trouble sleeping some times. According to data, Americans collectively check their mobile devices up to 8 billion times every day. New studies are being done every day on this, but research has shown that people who use their phones more around bedtime are more likely to experience problems falling, or staying asleep.

In a 30 day study, 653 adults from all over the United States downloaded an app to monitor their screen time, while also recording how long and well they slept every night. It was found that people looked at their phones about 3.7 minutes every hour, and the longer time they spent, the worse their sleep patterns appeared.

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The though process behind this is that the blue light from your phone suppresses melatonin, the hormone that helps you maintain your circadian rhythms. Obviously (and especially) with this election looming, things that you may read on your phone also affect the way you sleep.

While plenty of people are researching it, we still don’t know the long-term effects of phone usage on our lives, especially when we are sleeping and unplugged, so my advice is this:

Don’t check your phone for 30 minutes before you go to bed. This will give your mind some much-needed time to actually relax, leading to a better night’s sleep.

Put your phone on airplane mode while you sleep. You can set emergency contacts on most smart phones so that the call will push through if it’s an emergency, but something about putting your phone on airplane mode is inherently relaxing because it removes your connection to the world, and all the distractions that come with it.

Practice leaving your phone behind sometimes. I know it’s our first instinct to have our phones within arms reach at all times, but leaving it plugged into a wall sometimes, and not concerning yourself with what is happening on social media sites will give you a tiny amount of freedom and stress relief that may just lead to a better night’s rest.

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