Technology helps people stay connected and entertained, but it may have a detrimental impact on sleep. According to some experts, technology may even disturb our natural REM cycles and disrupt sleep cycles altogether.
Studies have demonstrated that exposure to light from computers and other devices can disrupt sleep by altering melatonin production, leading to daytime fatigue and an overall reduction in quality sleep.
Blue Light
Blue light from digital devices and screens can interfere with your sleep cycle and suppress melatonin production – the hormone responsible for helping people fall asleep faster.
Sleeplessness and disrupted sleeping patterns, leading to early awakenings each morning, can result in sleepless nights and fatigue as well as mood changes.
There are a few steps you can take to reduce your exposure to blue light, including limiting screen time before bed and using a blue light filter when browsing online or checking emails on your phone.
Make sure your children receive plenty of natural sunlight; it can help regulate their sleeping and wake cycles and play an integral part in helping them adjust. This is particularly important.
Social Media
Social media use at night has been shown to cause poor sleep quality, shorter sleep duration, daytime sleepiness and an increase in latency for sleep. Furthermore, research indicates it may also increase pre-sleep cognitive arousal levels as well as raise the risk of mental health disorders like depression and anxiety.
At night, users may find it difficult to switch off their devices, particularly young people who often form strong emotional connections to social media platforms and feel isolated without access to online friends.
As such, researchers are increasingly adopting an in-depth understanding of social and emotional aspects related to social media use, which can provide a more coherent framework for understanding interlinkages between sleep and mental health. Utilizing collaborative multidisciplinary approaches that triangulate insight from various methodologies and perspectives may contribute to building an integrative picture of the correlations between social media use and sleep outcomes.
Electronics
Electronics are devices that utilize electricity for various tasks. Examples of electronics devices include computers, radios, radio-controlled toys (RCT), digital cameras, televisions and smartphones.
Electrical devices convert electrical energy to heat, light, or motion using batteries. Electronic devices use current manipulation by adding information into it and transmitting it over cable or wireless signals.
Computers are among the most ubiquitous forms of electronics; however, other varieties exist too: cameras, digital watches, pocket watches and personal organizers all rely on electronics for various tasks.
Research suggests that using electronics before bedtime may have an adverse impact on sleep quality, perhaps due to blue light from screens or its effect on melatonin production and sleeping cycle patterns.
Noise
Noise pollution refers to any sound that interferes with sleep or health, can be an indicator of mental illness or depression and interferes with communication and relationships.
Noise begins as airborne vibrations caused by wind; your brain then interprets these as sound.
Noise that disrupts your sleep cycle can force you out of one sleep stage into another prematurely and lead to poor quality rest, increasing risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, weight gain, type 2 diabetes and certain cancers.
Environmental noise is an often-ignored determinant of nocturnal sleep disturbance. It triggers biological responses in the form of stress responses that produce measurable biological changes as well as subjective complaints such as daytime fatigue, tiredness, mood disturbance and cognitive dysfunction [1,2,6,10].