As a psychology major, I have learned that so much screen time before bed not only affects your sleep patterns but the brain as well. We are all addicted to the screen but it is essential to keep the screen time-limited before heading to bed. You may be wondering why you are not as alert in the mornings and the main culprit can be that we do not put our phones down till the second we fall asleep.
1. The blue light affects the amount of melatonin you obtain
The amount of blue light you receive from your phone is bad for both your eyes and brain. We know melatonin is a hormone that helps regulate our sleep cycle. This means the more blue light you receive before bed will affect how you sleep then also affects how tired and fatigued you feel the next day.
2. The content you see may affect your mood and REM sleep
Social media can make us feel different kinds of emotions, from happy, to sad, and angry. It all depends on the content we see. Whether it be good or bad those emotions can be what keeps us up at night. We tend to lay in bed wide awake thinking about what we see on social media.
3. The cognitive stimulation takes a turn for the worst
There are different hormones that are involved in getting the best rest. Cortisol is a hormone that manages your stress and as a college student, it seems to be in overdrive all of the time. Cortisol is also what wakes you up in the mornings. Now, instead of melatonin being released to help you sleep cortisol is now released, which then confuses and imbalances your body and brain.
4. It screws up your body clock
All of our bodies are synched up to a circadian rhythm which is our 24-hour body clock. We all rely on this to keep our basic body functions going. As we have said before, the blue light can affect us in more ways than one and for this instance, it can mess up the clock our body uses to survive.
5. You end up being more alert
We can believe that relaxing at the end of the day in bed scrolling our phones can help us wind down. In fact, it does not. Personally, I have done this and found it harder to go to sleep and the next thing I know it is 12 a.m. and I have to be up for work at 6 a.m.
6. You will not feel as alert when you wake up
As said before, scrolling aimlessly and the blue light your eyes are getting can affect how you sleep at night. Sometimes I have even woken up feeling more tired than I was when I went to bed.
7. Damage to your eyes
Our eyes are probably one of the most important parts of our bodies, it obviously helps us see. When we are in the dark being exposed to the blue light, it then causes the potential to damage our retinas as we are straining our eyes. Which will then affect how well our central vision is.
8. Chance of cancer increased
Cell phone use at night seems to mess up our melatonin on more ways than one. It is actually an antioxidant that helps naturally fight off cancer. This then can alter with the use of our phones to a higher chance of not just cancer, but other chronic diseases and it can take a toll on the way our immune system may function.
9. It can be harder to learn
With being sleepy and more tired when we wake up, the use of phones before bed also affects how we learn. We tend to be more distracted and not attentive to what is being presented to us.
10. Increase of anxiety
I have noticed over the past couple of years my anxiety has increased and I think it partly has to do with the fact that my use of my phone has gone up drastically. I have tried to control it, but it has been hard as we all could admit.
As all of this may seem like nonsense or gibberish to you, it does make sense. We are constantly on our phones and before we know it, our health will take a toll due
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