Night Mode (and sleep more!)
“Dang I’m tired. I worked so hard all day and all I’ve wanted to do is climb into bed and conk out… but first lemme check out instagram, and then maybe reddit, but after that I’m DEFINITELY going to sleep…”
*3 hours later*
…
It’s so easy when you’re laying in bed to reach over and grab your phone or tablet. Recently though, studies are showing a growing trend of how pre-sleep electronics use is having a serious affect on our sleep.
Who would’ve thought beaming tons of information via super bright light directly into our eyes when we are trying to fall asleep MIGHT have some negative impact??
Luckily most electronics now come with a “night mode”, essentially after a certain time (say an hour before your bed time) your screens colors will dim and shift to a less jarring color scheme – something I now use on ALL my electronics. Learn more about night mode here.
Lack of sleep is proven to absolutely mess us up:
- weight gain
- irritability
- lack of focus
- increased risk of type 2 diabetes
- hallucinations
- increased risk of heart disease
- lower sex drive!
- depression
This is all some pretty serious stuff!
So, how do we fix it?
In addition to setting up night mode on my electronics, I personally also do a few things to insure I get enough sleep every night.
1.Set a bed time and stick to it. I get it, we are all super busy and stuff gets pushed back and you just “HAVE TO FINISH THIS BEFORE BED”, but I’ve found that staying up late to finish whatever I needed makes my next day WAY worse.
2.30 minutes or so every night in bed is “wind down time”. I normally grab a relaxed videogame, book, or mindlessly poop around on the internet (with night mode on!) – NO WORK ALLOWED
3.Move to the actual bed before bedtime and have lights off. This seems like a simple one, but laying around on the couch, lights all on, tv blaring, playing on your phone and then expecting to fall straight asleep is just not a thing that’s going to work for most people.
We’re all busy. None of us have enough time in the day to get all of our stuff done, but studies have shown, WE HAVE TO GET OUR SLEEP.
Make time for it, because you know no one else will do it for you.