How Technology Contributes to Lack of Sleep

Technology is great. It brings people from all over the world closer to one another. Jobs and other tasks are made easier. And the economy is stimulated from all of the new developments that regularly come out of the realm of technology. While the benefits seem endless, there is such a thing as too much technology. And this applies in the bedroom.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, more than ninety percent of Americans are regularly on the computer or some other kind of electronic device within the hour before we go to sleep. We know it’s tempting to check your newsfeed on Facebook or send a few emails and text messages during the downtime right before bed, but doing so can hurt your healthy sleep cycle. Here’s why: Electronic devices are known to stimulate brain activity, and not surprisingly, disrupt your ability to fall asleep. In addition, the artificial light that comes from the screen of some devices may mess around with the brain chemicals that promote sleep.

A recent study from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute investigated how exposure to light from certain electronic devices affects our hormones tied to sleep. The subjects were studied as they read, played games, and watched movies on an iPad, iPad 2, or PC tablet for various amounts of time. While they were doing these various activities, researchers were measuring the amount of light the subjects’ eyes received.

The results were unmistakable. Researchers found that exposure to light from computer tablets significantly reduced levels of melatonin, a hormone that regulates our internal clocks and plays a significant role in our sleep cycles. They determined that just two hours of exposure to a bright tablet screen at night reduced melatonin levels by about twenty-two percent. This is scarily important because the suppression of melatonin can mean all kinds of bad things health-wise, such as sleep disturbances, and even raising the risk of obesity, diabetes, and other disorders.

We know that it can be hard to cut down your use of electronics, but if you find yourself tossing and turning at night trying to fall asleep, then it’s worth a try to turn off the TV earlier and set down your phone long before you sleep. Other things you can do include limiting your computer use before bed—Facebook will be there in the morning. At the very least, you should at least dim the screen as much as possible so that the contrast between the screen and the dark isn’t so striking. When it comes down to it, studies have shown that using your electronic devices before sleep can greatly contribute to a lack of sleep by altering your hormones and reducing melatonin levels.

How Age-Appropriate Videos Help Kids Sleep

All parents know that a busy day has ended as soon as the kids are fast asleep in their beds. But a new study tells us that it might not be that simple. Even if you do get your kids to bed, relaxation time can be easily interrupted by a child who wakes up in the middle of the night. Researchers discovered that videos and media can play a significant role in whether your children go to sleep at bedtime and stay asleep.

There has been previous research that suggests that there’s a link between what kids watch during the day and the sleep problems they experience at night. A new study confirmed that preschool children appeared to sleep better when their parents were encouraged to cut their kids’ exposure to violent and age-inappropriate videos throughout the day. Researchers gave statistics to back up their claims. For example, twenty percent of the preschoolers whose media exposure was monitored were less likely to have sleep problems at night.

The study dealt with 565 children three to five years old in the Seattle area. The group of kids were split up into two random groups. While the parents of 276 children were encouraged to alter their children’s watching habits over a six-month period, parents of the other 289 kids were encouraged to change their kids’ eating habits instead. Those 276 children were encouraged to watch only “healthy media,” and the 289 others were encouraged to eat more healthily. Researchers collected questionnaires from all of the participating parents at the beginning of the study, at the six-month mark, after one year, and then again eighteen months later.

The results were unmistakable. Answers from the questionnaire collected at the beginning of the study revealed that at the start, forty-two percent of kids from the intervention group had some kind of sleep problem. In addition, thirty-nine percent of kids from the comparison group had some sort of sleep problem as well. Researchers stipulate that the most common sleep problem was that it took the kids too long to fall asleep several nights a week.  

Questionnaires collected at the six-month mark showed that that forty-two percent of kids with a sleep problem from the intervention group dropped down to just thirty percent. Statistics from the comparison group also experienced a decrease, but it wasn’t as drastic. Thirty-six percent of kids in the comparison group still experienced some sort of sleep problem after six months of eating more healthily. These statistics seemed to level out after one year. Although researchers noted that sleep problems started to reappear at the eighteen-month mark, they pointed out the fact that after a year and a half, parents were probably more lenient on curbing their children’s viewing habits.

Focusing on the results within a year after the study began, this study reveals that the media children consumed throughout the day had an impact on their sleep. Children from the intervention group whose parents were encouraged to expose their kids to only age-appropriate media experienced less sleep problems over time. Contrastingly, children from the comparison group, who changed their eating habits rather than their viewing habits, didn’t decrease their sleep problems as much as the intervention group did.

Now that we know that what our children watch really does affect how well they sleep at night, what can we do? Well, the number one thing you can do is to monitor what your children watch. Choose more appropriate content for your kids to be exposed to. Another thing that can promote healthy sleeping for your kids is to turn the TV off at least two hours before bedtime. This way, consistent bedtimes and waking times will be established. We know how important a full night’s rest is to a growing child.