It’s the end of your day, you just finished your post-dinner dishes and turned off your tv after that just-one-more episode on the latest must-see binge watch series. You have already cycled through your entire skincare routine, brushed your teeth, and now you are sliding under your cloud-like comforter with fresh sheets you just washed and then….. you set your alarm on your phone, plug it into the charger hanging over your nightstand and let your mind drift off until that iconic alarm sound blares through the phone speakers, ready to hit snooze for that moment of “just 15 more minutes”.
While this may sound like a typical evening to most, it may be doing more harm than good for your sleep schedule. Different phones have different systems for how alarms and reminders are set up and your phone may be interrupting your circadian rhythm. Here are a few good reasons to find a new landing pad for your device and replace that aggressive phone alarm with something a bit more classic:
Doomscrolling
Having your phone within arms reach of where you sleep just makes it easier for you to check your phone well past your bedtime. In addition to the blue light exposure that can have a negative impact on your melatonin production, having your phone s close to your face with the lights off or even staring at the bright screen directly before closing your lids for the night can have a negative impact on your vision. With your eyes constantly adjusting between the dark of the night and the bright blue light emitting from your screen, you may find yourself in the optometrist’s office sooner than you expected.
Push Notifications
You may not be waking up to the small blips of notification sounds or the vibrations from the latest promo email sent at 1am from an automated list that you know very well is headed for the junk folder, but that notification is still causing a disturbance. Due to the introduction of smartphones into every day activities, the push notifications are now affecting our cognition to the extent where your brain might react to that little “ping” in the same manner that one might react to winning on a slot machine.
Blue Light
You will never get through a conversation about your cellphone without hearing these two words as if they were a lyric placed precisely when your CD skips. The blue light that emits from your phone screen emulates the same wavelength that sunlight produces so while it may be the middle of the night when you look out the window, your brain becomes confused when you spend time staring at your phone because it will be trying to convince your neurons that it is actually daytime. This disrupts melatonin production, having a negative impact on your sleep schedule. You don’t even have to look at your phone screen for this to happen, when your phone goes off in the middle of the night or a notification simply lights up your screen, even at a distance this will have an effect on how deep you sleep.
In conclusion, while having your phone next to you as you sleep might seem like a convenient way to start your day, it may be healthier for you to opt into the investment of an old school alarm clock. Analog clocks remove the negative impact of any light that a digital clock may emit, but a digital clock is still better for you than your phone — not to mention the fact that you never need to worry about whether or not your alarm will go off if you put your phone into Do Not Disturb mode.