In the present times when screens are very much becoming an integral part of our routines lives and most of the day you are hooked to your laptop, computer or PC, here’s some news around effects of screen time just before sleeping.
Screen-time just before sleep leads to a bad nights sleep and leaves you groggy the next morning. We all know that blue light is bad for sleep already. But, screen time before sleep tends to affect your body clock as per a researcher. The body clocks natural cycles intimate us about sleep and waking up times. Also known as Circadian rhythms, they find help from the light of the day and night for keeping their internal body clock running over a 24 hour cycle.
The fact that the electronic gadgets are around us round the clock makes their use and hence exposure to blue light all the more evident. Now, the study was conducted over 19 subjects in their 20’s. Everyone had to spend around 2 hours before bed time on computer screens. The results obviously varied between students because the computer screens were not all the same. The were tweaked. Some screens emitted soft blue light, while some emitted intense blue. Some of them emitted intense red and some soft red as well. This was done to check the effect of each one. Even after the subjects went off to sleep, the researchers recorded how many of them work up and how many of them slept all through the night. Further the researchers also note down the sleep phase called REM (short for rapid eye movement) and even asked the subjects themselves about their sleep experience.
The researchers observed that the subjects who were exposed to intense blue light suffered sleep issues for around 16 minutes as compared to the ones who were exposed to red light. They even woke up through the night more often than the red light exposed subjects. The researchers observed that the blue light emissions from the computer effected melatonin, the sleep hormone of each subject. This hormone is responsible for making us sleepy and is secreted around 9 pm in the blood. Now, the blue light restricted the melatonin secretion and hence the subjects exposed to intense blue light felt alert to fall asleep even if they were tired. Those exposed to red light did not find any such issues.
Well, the researchers through this study brought forward the fact that the intense blue light emissions from computer screens just before sleep time does affect the body clock. Though the light used for the study was extremely bright that generally the TV or tablet or computer emits, there is no cent percent surety of the damage it causes.
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*Source from internet