Always Tired? Maybe it’s Your Phone

We at Cardiohigh see three crucial things for a healthy life: diet, exercise and sleep. And while we spend plenty of time talking about the importance of the first two, we don’t spend that much time on the third. But a new study about phone usage and sleep is something we have to bring up.

Researchers at the University of California wanted to see if our phones are harming our sleep, so they first found 653 of the millions of possible test subjects. For 30 days these men and women had a tracker on their phones when could log when they used their phones and for how long. They also had their length of sleep and consistency of sleep measured.

And what they found was that people who looked at their phones more through the day, and those who were staring at their screen before they went to bed slept less and had less consistent sleep.

Why? Some say it could because the screen itself depletes us of melatonin. Or, according to this article, it could be something deeper:

We also know that emotional upset, or just being stimulated apart from smartphone use, can adversely affect sleep quality, and that engaging with Twitter or Facebook or email can cause that sort of stimulation.

We suggest one way to get away from this is treat the phone like you treat the TV — maybe keep it in another room so when you go to bed you’re not tempted to look at it. Because trust us, that Instagram post can wait until morning.

-Shane M.