Even more effective: consider dimming the lights, since artificial light can mess up a healthy sleep-wake cycle. Or, if reading on your phone is crucial to one’s nighttime routine, it’s recommended to avoid blue light for at least 30 minutes before dozing off. When melatonin production is thrown off, we’re likely to experience restless sleep.Ī top sleep hygiene tip to avoid blue light from screens is to unplug an hour before bedtime. Research shows that blue light from screens not only shortens overall sleep time, but it can also interfere with the production of melatonin, a hormone that’s key in regulating our circadian rhythm (also known as our body clock, which regulates between our wake and sleep cycle). So, if we’re part of the 90% of Americans using your phone before bed - to skim the news, browse status updates, or even read a novel - we’re not necessarily setting ourselves up for a good night’s sleep. Rather, it’s the short-wave blue light they emit. But it’s important to understand that screens themselves aren’t the problem. Where sleep is concerned, how we read is very important - namely, avoiding reading on screens.Įlectronic screen time before bed can do a number on our sleep. And when the body is more relaxed, it becomes easier for us to wind down and drift off. While our mind is quite literally lost in the words, our body gets the chance to rest and relax. The act of engaging our imaginations with a paperback allows us to enter an altered state of consciousness. “Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight.” “Typically, when you read, you have more time to think,” Maryanne says. When reading, “you are forced to construct, to produce narrative, and to imagine,” says Maryanne Wolf, director of the Center for Reading and Language Research at Tufts University. Reading a book or actively listening to a story are 2 ways to keep the mind engaged. Strong cognitive function can help reduce mental chatter, which in turn, helps us drop into a quiet state of relaxation. Similar to how physical exercise strengthens the body, cognitive exercises - like reading - are important to strengthen the mind. There’s an age-old reason why reading a book in bed is part of so many children’s nighttime routines: reading puts us in the right headspace for a good night’s sleep. Reaching for the right thing to read before bed can help, too. In fact, practicing before bed, like trying a wind-down meditation* in the Headspace app, can prepare the mind for sleep using a variety of proven techniques, like noting and visualization. If this continues to happen over a period of many days and weeks, the resulting insufficient sleep may likely impact our mental and physical health: performance suffers, the immune system weakens and doesn’t work at full capacity, and we're less able to enjoy the moment, among other things. And it’s not just adults who experience this restlessness: many studies have associated stress or anxiety with sleep difficulties in infants and children, too. The body is amped up and kicks into “fight or flight mode,” a state of alertness that’s hardly conducive for relaxation, let alone deep, restful sleep. When someone is stressed, their nervous system releases adrenaline and cortisol, which in turn, causes the heart rate to increase. Whether we’re feeling tension from a thought, pain, past event, or future worry, stress can negatively impact sleep, both the duration and quality. Stress might not only distract you from enjoying a book at bedtime. Reading before bed sounds nice, doesn’t it? But it can be difficult to pick up a book at night and fully immerse ourselves in the story on the pages when we’re stressed.
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