What is the last thing you do before you close your eyes at night? For many of us, the last thing we do before going to sleep is scrolling on our phone. In this blog post we will give you some reasons to turn off your phone earlier and leave it out of your bedtime routine.
1. Blue light activation
Your cell phone emits blue light, which your brain perceives as sunlight. So blue light actually delays sleep. The Sleep Foundation recommends to stop using your phone or computer 30 minutes before bed time. You can replace your phone for an old fashioned book at night, to get you ready for a deep sleep.
2. Mind activation
When you are constantly feeding your brain texts, emails and social media posts (which you might not agree with), your mind will stay busy and remain in an active mode. In order to prepare your body and mind for sleep, you will benefit from a quiet transition without all the data from your phone.
3. Blue light is harmful for your eyes
Our eyes are very good at blocking out UV rays from reaching our retina (of course not a 100% which is why sun glasses are recommended), but at the same time our eyes have great difficulty blocking blue light from reaching our retina at the back of the eyeball. Overexposure to blue light can cause damage to those retinal cells.
Challenge
Try this for 2 nights: turn off your phone at night / put it on airplane mode or leave it on the kitchen counter. When you wake up, try to stay off your phone for as long as possible.
The irony of this blog post is that I am writing from… my bed, just before going to sleep. So we are definitely not perfect and this blog is as much meant to be an inspiration for you as well as ourselves.