If you sleep with your cell phone in your bed at night, you’re not alone. Nearly 62% of Americans sleep with their phones, according to a report from Reviews.org. While this may seem harmless enough, sleeping in close proximity to your phone can actually affect your sleep and impact your overall health.
Although smartphones can certainly make life easier, they can also reduce the quality of your sleep (via Cleveland Clinic). That’s because cell phones were designed to keep your mind engaged. Unless your phone is set to silent, texts, calls, and notifications can wake you up in the middle of the night and disrupt your sleep cycle. Checking your phone and responding to messages keeps your brain engaged, making it more difficult to fall back asleep.
The blue light from your smartphone can also keep you awake. Studies have shown that blue light can suppress your levels of melatonin, the hormone associated with your sleep-wake cycle that makes you feel drowsy at night. This is because blue light mimics daylight, tricking your body into thinking it’s still daytime. This can delay your circadian rhythm, causing you to both fall asleep later, and wake up later.
How to improve your sleep
If your phone is constantly disrupting your sleep cycle, there are a few things you can do to help improve the quality of your sleep. The easiest of which is to simply remove your phone from your bedroom (via Verywell Health). By leaving your phone in another room before you go to bed, you can significantly reduce the impact it has on your circadian rhythm.
You can also invest in an alarm clock. Many people rely on their phone’s alarm to wake them up in the morning, but this requires keeping the sound on throughout the night, which can disrupt your sleep. Using an alarm clock can prevent this from happening. Another way to improve the quality of your sleep is to reduce your exposure to blue light before you go to bed. Putting down your phone or computer an hour before bedtime can help relax your mind and prevent the suppression of melatonin.
