Do you have trouble heading to the land of nod, night after night?
Do you hit the bed at a reasonable hour, only to find yourself staring at the ceiling in the wee hours?
If this scenario sounds familiar, you may be in dire need of a digital detox.
The use of electronic devices at bedtime is now the subject of a steady stream of research, with finding after finding suggesting that we’d be far better off if we only switched off.
The latest study comes from Norway, where researchers monitored just under 10,000 teenagers, investigating daytime screen use and use of electronic devices before bedtime in relation to sleep.
They found that both daytime and bedtime use of electronic devices were both related to sleep measures, with an increased risk of short sleep duration, long sleep onset latency and increased sleep deficiency.
Further, researchers found that a “dose–response” relationship emerged between sleep duration and use of electronic devices – i.e. the more you use your device, the harder you’ll find it to get to sleep.
Previous studies have suggested that the problem may be rooted in the blue light emitted by LED screens, which has been found to interfere with the production of melatonin, a sleep hormone, in the brain.
