Sleep and Smartphones:
Is chemistry keeping you awake?
It’s 1am.
You should be sleeping,
but you’re glued to your smartphone,
catching up on the latest news,
facebook updates and tweets.
It turns out that the smartphones and tablets
that keep you connected and organized...
May also be keeping you awake.
See, our eyes perceive light
in a range of wavelengths.
Different wavelengths produce
different color sensations.
And those sensations help
tune your internal clock.
Here’s sleep researcher Brain Zoltowski.
“One of the best biological cues we have to what
time of day it is… is light. And it turns out
that blue light in particular is very effective
for basically predicting when morning is.”
And guess what puts out a ton of blue light.
Your ipad, your phone, your computer
emit large quantities of blue light.
That means when you’re under the covers texting,
tweeting or playing your latest game obsession,
you’re essentially telling your body
“it’s morning!” Again.
What you want instead is more red light,
which is more abundant towards dusk.
And that will help your body basically recognize
‘It is now evening,
and I should be preparing for sleep.’
Your body gets that signal through melanopsin.
Melanopsin is a protein that undergoes
a chemical change when exposed to light.
This protein hangs out in cells called,
well, we’ll let brian explain.
“They’re referred to as Intrinsically
Photosensitive Retinal Ganglion Cells.
It’s a mouthful.
Basically these cells are located
deep behind the eyes where you’re going
to be able to get and collect light
through your normal process, but
it’s just not affecting basically
the same visual regions of the brain.
Rather, they’re more signaling through
to the Supercreasmatic Nucleus, called the SCN,
where our master clock is located.
That master clock regulates circadian functions…
everything that tells your body
to wake up and go to sleep.
There’s still a lot we don’t know about sleep and how it happens.
So what can you do in the meantime to help reset your clock?
If we basically do
what our bodies naturally want.
Eating at the right time of day,
going to sleep when we’re tired.
You’ll find that you’ll get
much more restful sleep.
So shut off the screens well
before you hit the sack. And
don’t follow this sleep researcher’s example.
I am a horrible example.
Despite knowing a lot about these processes,
every night I still fight
the urge to go to sleep.
I am most productive probably starting
at about 10pm at night.
So most of my research and work then
is being tried to be done at a time
when I’m supposed to be going to sleep.
Hey instead of hitting that snooze button,
why not hit the subscribe button
and get more chemistry fun
and facts from reactions.
Sleep well, internet.