Sleep Better

How to Fix the Damage Done by Your Electronic Devices

You’re dreaming. And in the distance of whatever weird illogical scenario you’re in, you can hear a familiar tune. Well, not so much a tune. Maybe a beeping. One that sounds so urgent it more closely resembles the bleating of a sheep. Yeah, that’s your alarm.

The shock of being woken up forces your eyes wide. You frantically grasp towards your phone to turn off the alarm.

From that moment on, you’re awake. And it sucks.

It’s almost ironic that the pain associated with that groggy, disoriented feeling is so acute. You’d think that those confused and tired feelings would somehow numb how unpleasant it is to wake up more poorly-rested and more exhausted than you went to bed.

Though it’s almost impossible (or beyond our power, at least) to change how you experience those uncomfortable mornings, we do have some insight on how you can give yourself the best possible chance avoiding that morning routine altogether.

The real problem is that your smartphone is probably the thing stopping you from having a good nights rest. And the better night’s sleep you get, the more you will not dread waking up in the morning.

The Science behind Sleep Hygiene

Anyone well versed in the language of sleep deprivation (read: insomniacs) will tell you that sleep hygiene is one of the crucial parts of a good night’s rest. It makes sense if you think about it– proper hygiene, we’re told, are habits we develop that prevents our teeth from rotting away and keeps bacteria from otherwise taking over our lives. Sleep hygiene follows this same principle: poor sleep hygiene causes trouble sleeping, daytime sleepiness, or it can worsen specific kinds of sleep disorders.

Proper sleep hygiene calls for the controlling of all environmental factors that affect you before and during sleep. This includes things like avoiding heavy meals a few hours before bed and arranging a sleep environment that is dark and cool.

Maybe more surprisingly, sleep researchers recommend that people avoid bright lights, LEDs, and electronic devices a few hours before bed. Studies have found that while light at night is bad for your health, being exposed to the blue light emitted by electronics and energy-efficient lightbulbs is especially bad.

The blue spectrum of light is beneficial during daylight hours because it naturally peps you up, makes you more alert, and boosts your mood. But alertness is the enemy of sleep.

Being exposed to blue light in the few hours before bed can really interfere with a person’s sleep cycle and suppress melatonin secretion. Melatonin is responsible for lowering blood pressure, glucose levels, and body temperature. While these are the key physiological responses needed for a restful sleep, they are also key to preventing health issues like diabetes and obesity.

Steps to Sleeping Better

So, in the face of this evidence, we’re left wondering how we can balance our beloved LED screens and our need for a restful, melatonin-laden sleep. Do the more than 64% of us who sleep with our phones within an arm’s reach need to kick our mobile devices out of the bedroom once and for all?

Our answer is a qualified no.

There are some steps you can take to totally eliminate or at least minimize the effects that blue light has on the quality of your sleep. We’ll start with the most extreme and work our way down to the relatively simple fixes.

The most thorough approach to the blue light issue is physically blocking out that spectrum of light. If you’re not too keen on channeling your inner Bono by sporting these orange tinted glasses, you can use a screen filter to fully eliminate the blue light coming from your electronic devices.

While there are a few options on the market, filters for the iPhone or iPad made byLowBlueLights have been shown to be 100% effective in blocking blue light when tested by a spectroscope. They make a screen filter ($12-$20) that you can stick on your phone, even overtop of your regular screen protector, in the evening 2-3 hours before your bedtime. This filter can be easily removed in the morning and has a good chance of seriously improving the quality of your sleep. At the very least, you can avoid the strange and unflattering blue glow on your face when you’re using your phone in a dark room.

If you’re not into using a physical filter, and are comfortable using a computer for your nighttime content consumption, try using f.lux, which automatically adapts your computer’s display according to the time of day so that you are exposed to less blue light at night. We don’t recommend the iOS version because it requires your iPhone to be jailbroken. Just a warning though: software can rarely eliminate all the blue light emitted by your screen.

If none of these options feel right for you, you might want to opt to take your content consumption offline. Try reading a book or some other relaxing activity before bed. Just make sure that the light you’re using for whatever activity you choose comes from a non-LED source, whether that means a non-LED TV screen or non-LED bedside lamp.

For those of you who will throw caution to the wind and use your unfiltered mobile device a few hours before bed anyway, try to limit your time to about 30 minutes on as low of a brightness setting as possible. Listen to a podcast, watch a lecture on YouTube, or do whatever online activity you find most relaxing. It’s important to note that a contributing factor in all of this is the fact that the behavior we engage in online can be pretty stressful and, as a result, it can make us feel more alert– a big no-no before bed.

Our last tip actually involves getting plenty of exposure to blue light in the daytime. So, make sure you get outside as much as possible during the brightest time of the day or buy a light designed to help with seasonal affective disorder. It turns out that exposure to blue light during the day might be as important to regulating your sleep cycle as avoiding it at night.

If you’ve had any trials or triumphs with your sleep habits using the solutions we mention above, we’d love to hear it. You can tell us in the comments below or get in touch with us on Twitter, Facebook, or through email. We read and respond to everything!