Why You Should Not Use Your Phone at Night

How the light of your smartphone affects your brain and your body.

If you are someone who spend the last half hour of the day curled up in bed with your computer, tablet or mobile phone you should know that watching these devices at night may make it more difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Our bodies naturally follow a cycle that helps us stay awake and alert during the day and that helps us sleep at night. What it is known as circadian cycle?

When we look at the screens of our mobile phone while we are preparing for sleep,  our brain is confused.

Similar to sunlight in the mornings effect.

The screens produce blue light so we can see them even on sunny days. But at night, the glow mimics sunlight, sending contradictory to the brain about what time of day is signals.

The bright light of our mobile causes the brain to stop producing melatonin, the hormone that regulates sleep.

By interrupting the production of melatonin, mobile phone light can disrupt our sleep cycle, as a kind of artificial jet lag. What makes us more difficult to sleep and staying asleep, which can trigger serious long – term health problems.

An app for night use.

To combat this problem, it is designed f.lux. It is a free application for Mac, Windows and Linux computers that makes the color of your screen to suit the time of day. Establishing the location and the time you usually wake up normally, the program calculates the approximate bedtime.

The recent update of iOS 9.3 enables a new mode called Night Shift, in which the user can set from what time begins the night. And when you start the "Night mode", the phone automatically adjusts the display to emit a warmer and less blue light.

Source: Why You Should Not Use Your Phone at Night