Why you may not be sleeping as well as you think you are

If you enjoy taking one of those e-readers to bed with you, are you really sleeping as well as you think you are?

A while back, the news came out that these kinds of devices might be causing insomnia. But a new study found that even if you think all is well in the land of nod, it just might not be.

Because it’s not just falling asleep that matters, but the quality of the shut-eye that follows.

Researchers carefully studied volunteers who read from iPads before nodding off. After five nights of that, they switched to books with paper pages.

And the difference in their sleep patterns, as well as how rested they felt in the morning, was significant. A big change was noticed in an important part of our nightly siesta called REM sleep.

That lack of quality sleep time made the volunteers feel awake when it was time for bed, but sleepy the following day.

The sleep-stealer is coming from the type of light some of these devices give off. The “wrong” kind of light before bedtime can suppress natural production of melatonin – the hormone that helps you sleep.

Exposure to that kind of light can also make it more difficult to fall asleep.

But not all these e-readers are the same, so hopefully if you got one for Christmas it’s not one of the super bright ones.

This study found iPads to be the worst offenders, with the Kindle Fire and Nook Color not quite as bad. Also, the regular, and cheapest Kindle device doesn’t have a built-in light. So you’ll still need that bedside lamp to use it — but it shouldn’t interfere with your slumber.

Another idea is to turn down the screen brightness in any e-reader you use for bedtime reading.

Of course, there is another option.

You could take an actual book to bed with you. Remember those?

Source:

“One more reason to reach for a paper book before bed” Rob Stein, December 26, 2014, NPR, npr.org