A Bed For Two

Fewer people are getting a good night's sleep due to mobile phones.

Do you share your bed with your mobile phone?

Connected to your hand or pocket, the hand-sized device never leaves. Even when trying to sleep, the bright screen light causes you to pick it back up again and again, until you’re doom scrolling into the early hours of the morning. The next day, you're awoken by a heart pattering and deafening noise. You've only had 5 or 6 hours of terrible sleep (once you eventually put it down.)

Feeling tired, irritated and annoyed about a dreadful night's sleep, you look down at your wrist where a sleek dark coloured watch confirms that your sleep score is well below 60. You are ready to survive the day of work, stress and busyness ahead of you. 

What is your phone doing to you in the mornings? 

Research conducted by the University of Virginia’s School of Nursing has revealed that your phone alarm causes morning blood pressure surge due to your body being suddenly pushed awake unnaturally. The University has found that adults who were awoken by a phone alarm had blood pressure surges that were 74% greater than those who awoke naturally without an alarm. 

Being awoken by an obtrusive alarm activates the sympathetic system which is our ‘fight or flight’ response. This response from our bodies places more stress on the heart, as our blood is pumped harder and stronger, which then causes fatigue and anxiety. 

Not to mention maybe you wake up, press stop on the alarm and then start to scroll your morning away. Whether it be TikTok, Facebook, Instagram or even YouTube, your eyes and ears are attached to the screen in front of you. What's worse, when you wake up your brain is in a trance between awakeness and sleep. Immediately reaching for bright lights, fast-paced edits and endless scrolling can increase anxiety levels because you aren't letting the brain transition properly.

This is happening more and more - over 80% of people pick up their phone within 15 minutes of waking up. So if everyone is in the same boat, what exactly can we do to stop ourselves reaching for our mobile phones?

Firstly, we can put our phones in a different room overnight. Doing this would force us to get an alarm clock that isn’t our digital portal to another world and actually wake up and walk around a bit before being sucked online.

Secondly, build a strong routine with dedicated time for going online. What is the best time for you to pick up your phone? And how could you make sure not to pick it up?  

Yes, it will be hard, but you will see a noticeable difference both emotionally (less anxiety) and physically (getting stronger) due to getting more sleep that isn’t disrupted by your phone's blue light. You could even just keep a note not to look at your phone for 15 minutes after you wake up and build up from there. Instead of scrolling, you could read, draw, colour, go for a walk, or make a healthy breakfast. There are so many alternatives - the hard thing is making the first move.