Why You Shouldn’t Use Your Cellphone Right Before Bed

When you go to bed each night, do you keep your phone in your hand and then lay there as you scroll through your social media streams one more time before you call it a night?

Maybe you aimlessly scroll through videos or even play your favorite game. While many people think that using their phones before bed helps them unwind, there are several studies that indicate that cellphone use damages sleep quality.

If you’re one of the millions of people who try to go to sleep after scrolling through their phone, learn more about how cell phones impact sleep quality and how you can take some steps to improve your sleep quality.

Doing so will help you wake up feeling rested, healthier, happier, and more productive.

The Link Between Blue Light and Melatonin

If you already struggle with getting to sleep each night, your doctor may have encouraged you to get some melatonin at your local pharmacy.

Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone in the body that not only helps you fall asleep but also helps regulate your body’s natural sleep cycles throughout the night.

When you don’t produce enough melatonin, it’s much harder to get to sleep and stay asleep. The blue light produced by your cellphone and other electronic devices tricks your brain into thinking that it’s still daytime, which reduces the amount of melatonin that you produce.

Sleep cycles last an average of 90 minutes, and a good night’s sleep typically includes four or five sleep cycles.

Not only does a decrease in melatonin make it harder to fall asleep, but you’re much more likely to wake up multiple times during the night, which reduces the number of sleep cycles that your body and brain get through each night.

REM sleep, which is the sleep cycle that includes dreams and is the period during which your body gets the best rest, comes at the end of each sleep cycle. When you don’t get enough REM stages each night, you’ll wake up feeling unrested and irritable and may experience other health problems stemming from inadequate sleep.

Revenge Bedtime Procrastination

As technology has continued to advance, so too have the words that experts use to describe the pros and cons it provides.

The phrase “revenge bedtime procrastination” describes a phenomenon in which people delay sleep to reclaim the personal time that they feel they’ve lost during the day. There’s certainly no denying that as a whole, society is busier than we’ve ever been before.

As prices of goods and services rise, the number of hours that we work each day has gone up. This has led to people feeling like they don’t have enough time for themselves, and they often assume that the only way to reclaim some of that time for personal pleasure is to put off sleeping.

This leads to scrolling through media feeds, playing games, and watching videos.

Hypothetically, let’s assume that you need to wake up at 7 AM each morning. Ideally, you would get to bed between 11 PM and 12 AM at the latest, though an earlier bedtime could be even better.

Revenge bedtime procrastination means that you delay going to bed until 1 AM or 2 AM because you want to enjoy the screen time that you didn’t have time to enjoy during the day. This loss of an hour or two of sleep means that you’re not getting the number of complete sleep cycles that you need.

Increased Anxiety and Stress Levels

While we like to say that social media and other things we do on our phones allow us to wind down, the truth is that these things often lead to a lot of stress.

This is especially true if you’re using your late-night screen time to answer work emails, debate with people on social media platforms, or if you find yourself comparing your life to the lives of others that you follow.

When you look at things online that elicit an emotional response, it’s harder to get your brain to “turn off” so you can get some sleep.

Additionally, the notifications on your phone often create a sense of urgency, even if the alerts that are keeping you awake don’t pertain to things that are all that important.

Instead of reading bad news or arguing with strangers on social media before bed, put your phone on vibrate, get it far away from your bed, and find another way to unwind before you go to sleep.

The Impact on Sleep Quality

Assuming that you’re able to fall asleep after using your phone before bedtime, the odds of you getting deep, quality sleep aren’t all that high.

For years, experts have been publishing studies that indicate that using electronics before bedtime leads to what doctors call “shallow sleep.”

Sleep is meant to restore the body and mind, and there are even studies that indicate that REM sleep allows your mind to work out deep, emotional issues that you faced during the previous day.

When you cannot get into those deeper stages of sleep, you’ll not only wake up feeling physically tired, but it’s also harder to process the mental and emotional issues that you need to process.

Headaches and Eye Strain

Starting at any sort of screen for hours on end increases eye strain, which usually leads to headaches.

When you stare at a screen in a dark room, which is usually what people do when using their phone before bed, you’re exacerbating these issues because the screen looks even brighter when it’s surrounded by darkness.

In addition to headaches, doctors now believe that digital eye strain, a term that refers to eye strain caused by staring at screens, also leads to neck and shoulder issues, blurred vision, and other issues.

While you can certainly dim the brightness on your phone screen if you’re scrolling before bed, it’s an even better idea to put the phone down completely. The nerves in your eyes need the time to rest and shutting off your phone for an hour or two before you go to bed is a great way to provide them with that rest.

Improving Your Sleep Environment

Sleep hygiene is a term that refers to virtually everything about your sleep. The term includes the time that you go to bed, the quality of your mattress, and the overall environment that you sleep in.

Texting, gaming, and browsing all make your sleep environment less conducive to quality rest, which lowers your sleep hygiene. Ultimately, doing things that make your brain think that it’s daytime and it needs to perform at its best leads to poor sleep hygiene.

Ideally, your bedroom is a place that you only use for sleeping. This is why experts recommend those who work from home don’t put their desks and other work materials in their bedrooms.

Over time, your brain starts to associate the space with productivity instead of rest. In the same vein, if you go to bed but continue using your phone, your brain will stop treating your bedroom like a place that’s primarily for rest, lowering sleep hygiene.

Put the Phone Down and Get Some Rest

Cellphones are a vital part of daily life for most people, but that doesn’t mean they need to be part of your nighttime routine.

Instead of scrolling through your phone, consider some light reading, drawing, or journaling about your day.

Putting the phone down to get some rest not only improves your sleep quality but also helps you be a happier, healthier person, so put the phone down and get some rest.