Whether it's reading a book, taking a shower, or playing music, many of us have some sort of ritual - big or small - that we do before turning out the lights. And while we have an idea of the good and bad habits, we often don't know how detrimental some of them can be to our sleep before bed. With one of these habits, the consequences are now abundantly clear, a new study shows.
It's well known that staying in front of a screen before bed isn't the best habit - even if some of us prefer to fall asleep in the company of a TV screen. A body of scientific evidence suggests that electronic screens are not good for sleep duration or quality. But in a wide-ranging study conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, the data showed some surprising figures on how much phones in bed affect sleep.
The study asked 45,202 people specific questions about their phone screen time and sleep habits. They found a significant link between phone scrolling and an increase in insomnia symptoms.
Researchers found that an hour of phone use in bed increases your risk of insomnia by 59% and cuts 24 minutes off your night's sleep. And while the study was conducted on older college students aged 18-28, social networking wasn't a major factor - any activity on the phone had the same impact.
"It seems that the type of screen activity is not as important as the total time spent using screens in bed," says Dr. Gunnhild Johnsen Hetland of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and lead author of the study, as quoted by CNN. "We found no significant differences between social networking and other screen activities, suggesting that screen use itself is the main factor in sleep disruption." | BGNES
