What is your biggest enemy in the bedroom every night?
We’re aware our mobile phones aren’t the safest (or the most comfortable) thing to cuddle up to at night, but they could be more dangerous than you first thought.
A leading expert has warned that electric lights, including laptops, smartphones and tablets play a key role in causing people to sleep badly.
Artificial lights disrupt the body’s natural rhythm, affect chemicals in the brain and drive people to use stimulants like caffeine to stay awake longer, according to Harvard academic Professor Charles Czeisler, the Daily Mail reports.
They can seriously damage your sleep patterns, sometimes not allowing your body to enter a deep sleep at all.
The report says that this decline in the number of hours slept each night is affecting public health, causing a greater risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and depression. It can also raise the risk of stroke in adults and concentration problems in children.
Bright lights before bedtime can result in serious concentration issues for children.
“There are many reasons why people get insufficient sleep in our 24/7 society, from early starts at work or school, or long commutes, to caffeine-rich food and drink,” Professor Czeisler wrote.
In a study, 30 per cent of all working adults in the USA and 44 per cent of night workers reported getting less than six hours sleep a night on average.
Children are also sleeping 1.2 hours less on school nights than one hundred years ago.
“Technology has effectively decoupled us from the natural 24-hour day to which our bodies evolved, driving us to go to bed later,” Czeisler said.
“And we use caffeine in the morning to rise as early as we ever did, putting the squeeze on sleep.”
