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Study Shows Technology May Inhibit Good Sleep
An anonymous reader points out a study by the National Sleep Foundation which looked at the relationship between sleep habits and the use of electronic communications tech in the hour before bedtime. Dr. Michael Grasidar of Flinders University said, "My research compares how technologies that are ‘passively received' such as TVs and music versus those with ‘interactive' properties like video games, cell phones and the Internet may affect the brain differently. The hypothesis is that the latter devices are more alerting and disrupt the sleep-onset process." The study found that people who frequently send text messages or use their laptops before bed were less likely to report getting a good night's sleep (PDF) than people who don't. "While these technologies are commonplace, it is clear that we have a lot more to learn about the appropriate use and design of this technology to complement good sleep habits," said the NSF's David Cloud.
I blame Hulu and Netflix.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
Funny to read a scientist referring to sittin' on the couch vegging on TV as, basically, the good ol' days.
And I'm reading Slashdot.
Case closed.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
Slashdot's been pretty damn good a putting my to sleep the last few years...
Damn right I'll get sleep, there won't be anything else to do!
The article refers to a poll, not an experiment. Could it be that those who have trouble sleeping are more likely to engage in interactive entertainment?
Personally, I very, very rarely have trouble sleeping. I usually find myself getting too tired for interactive entertainment about an hour before I want to sleep. I'd *love* to be able to continue playing video games up until lights out, but I just don't have the energy. Those who have lots of energy will keep playing/blogging/hacking.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
From other studies, I am certain the issue is the light emitted.
For sleeping, your brain expects dim, red light. Bright, blueish light (what typical lamps, LEDs and displays emit) wakes your brain up or keeps it awake. The effect of turning on the light when going to the bathroom is a shock to the brain that takes quite long (1 hour I believe) to recover from (getting back to sleep).
Good advice is to go to sleep early, and wake up early, to use dim red lights rather than blue lamps in the evening. Try it out and you'll feel more refreshed.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
This discovery simply extends the idea that restful activities like reading promote sleep better than do physically and mentally demanding activities like heavy exercise. Of course, working yourself to (physical and mental) exhaustion may have the same effect as lying in bed and reading a book.
Have sex, you idiot. That's the best thing to do before going to sleep.
I wonder if the advent of modern LED lighting will allow a programmed shift toward red lights in the evening and a shift from red to blue bias in the morning to allow gradual shutdown and awakening, rather than the shock of an alarm clock or bright lights.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
I happen to love being "on" as much as possible - in an aware state, perceiving as much as possible, living as much as I can with my limited lifespan.
So much so, that I tend to almost always avoid anything that will interrupt this process, like mind-altering substances from alcohol to coffee.
I can certainly appreciate the need for sleep to recuperate, and silence as time to reflect - but I don't see mental stimulation as some venal sin, or carving the occasional slice of time away from 8-hour sleep blocks as destructive act.
You only get so much life - sleep is mostly just what I have to do in order to get to more awareness - the little slices of death that remind us how limited our time is.
Ryan Fenton
I use f.lux it the placebo effect is working
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
...listening to the radio than playing a video game.
Wow. Who'd a thunk it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Best time to have sex is in the morning, afternoon, or an hour or two after dinner. I'm always too tired to have sex by the time I feel like going to sleep.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Then again, I did have one girlfriend who never let me live down the time I started snoring mid-sex, so -- yeah, you can really be too tired to have sex, but it's pretty rare.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Good job I have Porphyria because I don't even have a "Normal" sleep schedule, it's all over the map.
I don't work in an office (basically impossible with severe Porphyria), so people are always asking me when I sleep because I send business emails 24/7, and am lucky to get a 5 hour night (starting about 4 or 5 am).
Thank goodness for 24/7 Tech accessibility!
I am CONSTANTLY fixing my sleep schedule, I have taken numerous different sleeping medications, but to be honest no matter what even after a ton of melatonin, i am still up and online, I know it has to do with having so much information so readily available, but it also probably has another type of sleeping disorder.
TL;DR There are too many factors.
-Noc
There's already an app you can get for Windows, Linux and OS X called F.lux which changes the colour temperate of your screen based on your time and location. http://stereopsis.com/flux/
Just installed it and my screen has a very strong yellowy-pinky tint as it is 2am.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
The only technology that's ever interfered with my sleep is my neighbour's sub-woofer.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
I actually go the opposite way with my marine fish tanks. I have time-controlled LED lighting rigs over those tanks that use specific wavelengths of red and blue lighting to avoid the wavelengths that cause algae growth (mainly around green). As the day cycle shifts to night cycle, the output spectrum shifts to all blue - to simulate moonlight and encourage night time activities in the corals, fish, etc.
If one's 'fight-or-flight' response is being constantly activated, it'd be hard to sleep.
Do you meditate or relax your body daily?
I used to have a ton of trouble falling asleep, but now I'm a consistent 12am->7:30am sleeper.
Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
www.teslabox.com
I usually go to bed at around midnight. I noticed that if I worked late (right up until the point I went to bed) or played PC games until around the same time, I would simply be too wired to go to bed and just fall asleep.
Watching TV didn't seem to have the same effect though; I could stay up late watching the box and then walk into the bedroom and pretty much faceplant and sleep immediately.
I now try to have the PC off by 10pm to stop me getting tempted to just check one more email or have one last round of StarCraft 2, because of the effect it has on my ability to get to sleep easily at my preferred sleeping time.
Despite the studies, and as a tech guy and a lifetime insomniac I can say from experience that the -reasons- for the use can make a huge difference. This is true of books and older "tech" too. A exciting story on the written page that gets you thinking isn't going to put you to sleep near as well as something that's quiet and calming. I find surfing the web doesn't bother what sleep pattern I have much. On the other hand I avoid news sites like the plague for the 3-4 hours before bed as I know there's bound to be something that will just irritate me and keep me awake.
One hour before my bedtime, I turn off my laptop, smartphone, and TV
i thought the military proved a long time ago that people only need 4 hours sleep every 25 hours... And that we are addicted to sleep (for a lack of media?)
For military, that highly likely true... You see, while in the army you are not suppose to think, only to react (at orders or at on how the tactical situation evolves)... with rest, the reflex-arcs recover much sooner than your central nervous system.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Seriously! "Our family is so much cloud visionaries that we MADE IT OUR NAME."
Who did what now?
Sit in a chair and stare at the wall?
Have you tried reading "A la recherche du temps perdu", "War and peace" or "Crime and punishment"?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
I recall reading some years ago that it's preferable to watch television or listen to radio in the hour before sleep than to read a book or solve crossword puzzles, for similar reasons to those stated in the summary. It's a pity the poll didn't include more traditional "interactive" media as well.
technologies that are 'passively received' such as TVs
Have gnu, will travel.
And I get woken up during the daytime by telemarketing robocalls
I've started doing this again, and I find that it helps a great deal, even if it's techie stuff.
Really, _especially_ if it's techie stuff.
Absolute statements are never true
I used to watch movies with explicit sexual content before going to bed and had a lot of trouble. Ever since I switched to reading Slashdot before turning out the light, it's been no problem.
I've had sleeping issues since high school about 10 years ago. Typically, I can't sleep until about 3 AM, and only get about 4 hours of solid rest. After that, I doze in and out of sleep for a couple hours.
I was in Africa for a bit, and regularly had no power - which meant no laptop. My sleep pattern improved drastically during those periods of time. However, the instant power was back I was using the laptop at night again. Immediately, the sleep issues returned. (Note that we did have a generator, so we still had lights and some appliances on when the power was out, but in general avoided turning anything unnecessary on unless we absolutely needed them, like computers).
I've reproduced the same behaviour in myself now that I'm in America. Cut out the laptop at night - start sleeping great in a few days. Re-introduce it: really, really rough week.
The people who are so obsessed with twitter and facebook that they bring the laptops to bed, can't get to sleep as well as normal well adjusted people who just watch a little TV before bed. Guess which group also has a better relationship with their spouses?
We all know TV is bad for you because it turns you into a lazy, passive couch potato. And now video games, cell phones and the Internet are bad for you because they ...don't.
Liberty in your lifetime
It's midnight and I'm on slashdot... oh... I get it....
I literally sleep in front of my computer. I sleep on a sleeping bag on the carpeted floor in front of two laptops attached to a 23" monitor between them. I wake up quite often at 3AM. Sleep is a problem, but I never really attributed it to the equipment. I turn off the monitors, put the laptop displays to sleep, and they don't beep during the night.
OK, it's not the technology, it's the interactivity. The article makes that clear. I'm surprised that this is considered news, though. It's the reason I can sleep after cycling but not after fencing.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Crime and Punishment is a fantastic book. If you want something to put you to sleep, try a math book (not saying math is uninteresting, merely that READING a math theory book is mind-numbing).
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
Technology is amazing!
It's the goddamn TVTropes that inhibits my good sleep...
Slashdot: Where opinions are just opinions until you have mod points.
Crime and Punishment is a fantastic book.
If you want something to put you to sleep, try a math book (not saying math is uninteresting, merely that READING a math theory book is mind-numbing).
Happens exactly the opposite for me. With maths, I found myself trying to almost construct a visual interpretation behind the math theory. In regards with Crime and Punishment.... I reckon that my empathic abilities suck.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Light is bad for melatonin production...
Sleep is so overrated. ZzzzZzzz... :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-477733/Sleepy-Spend-time-internet-watching-TV-say-scientists.html and http://aqfl.net/node/5268 (my poll). :)
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Wouldn't playing a good old fashioned game of Chess do the same thing? Why blame it on the electronic stuff when there are plenty of non-electronic things that can engage the mind.
I find that if either the TV or the computer has something interesting I'm locked in. That's why i call them the devil box and satan screen. oooo! Navy Seals!
I have been using this for 3 weeks now and it is excellent. It also tells me when I am working too late as my workplace has natural lightbulbs.
As a warning, I was having framerate issues with anything that actually used my graphics card when I was using F.lux. I liked the program, but that kind of killed it for me.
Good sleep is an art and you can help achieve this goal:
* cold-foam pre-formed pillow
* nice, warm and cozy blanket
* skin-friendly sheets
* the blanket must be at 30 cm longer than you are tall
* optionally cold-foam pre-formed sleeping mask
The next step is an even more awesome cold-foam mattress than the one I have, already.
Inform yourself and buy those within a month. You will love it.
The following material should be a compulsory read for all university students (and some slashdot commenters). http://xkcd.com/552/ How about: busy and/or stressed people have worse nights and also work more in the evening. One is not necessarily the cause for the other.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Wouldn't reading before bed be just as interactive as surfing the internet or playing a game?
It's also a lot easier to get by on 4 hours sleep when you're 22 and your biggest worry is being blown apart by a roadside IED or getting publicly dressed down by your sergeant for dereliction of duty. It's a lot harder to get by on that little when you're 50 and your biggest worry is wondering who will finish raising your kids when your early heart attack comes. Once you're past 38 or so, respecting your body's limits (i.e. getting enough sleep) will usually gain you additional decades of life.
You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
I used to sleep badly, until I started to follow one rule: no screens after 9pm, whether it's for the TV, internet or games. Now I always get enough sleep, unless I break this rule for some reason. Funnily enough it doesn't seem to matter if I read in bed, which makes me think that the backlighting on screens may have played some role in stuffing up my circadian rhythms.
Two anecdotal points. First, i don't really seem to have a circadian rhythm. I can get up early and stay up late one day and get up late and go to bed early on another. Given the opportunity i can take a nap in the middle of the day and then stay up all night and return to a more or less normal sleep schedule the next day. And i've never been bothered by jet lag.
Second, i never have what most people would qualify as trouble falling asleep. However if i don't drop off instantly after going to bed i've got three usual options to speed up the process. Lie still and focus on relaxing muscles one by one, read a book, or play Sudoku on my cell phone. Sudoku usually works just as well as forcibly relaxing myself, sometimes even better, despite the fact that i'm staring into a lit screen and being "interactive." Reading a book _usually_ works just as well, but it does occasionally backfire if it happens to be an particularly interesting book, especially if i'm getting towards the end.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
Why are you bathing with interactive devices?
Were you using the JoyStick in your bath?
I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. -- Groucho Marx
this is very simple ... they are trying to go to bed and still thinking about the text msgs or about what they just seen online.. Even if they would watch tv and see something that touched them they would have problem falling a sleep because they would be thinking about it... its not like it has anything to do with electricity !
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