Who killed my sleep?

From timesofindia.indiatimes.com

By Dr. Ajit Varwandkar 

“Smartphones cause insomnia and even somnambulism in many people” – when I read this caption in a newspaper, I decided to research the importance of sleep on human performance and productivity. The findings of my brief research, which I am sharing through this column, were astounding. 

Did you someday wake up in the morning and feel groggy! Even if you slept for seven long hours, you still felt more sleepy and tired! If yes – there could be many reasons for this experience. However, one of the prominent reasons behind experiencing such lethargy in the morning in today’s world is your ‘smartphone’! Yes, you read it right – the real villain is that handy but infections sweet, smart tool you are holding in your hand right now. More specifically, the light emitted from these phones’ screens harms the human brain, especially in the context of ‘sleep generation’.

We humans sleep in different sleep cycles, which constitute our circadian rhythm. The two prominent sleep cycles are called NREM and REM sleep cycles. REM stands for Rapid Eye Movement, and NREM means Non-Rapid Eye Movement. Both these cycles are about ninety minutes each. Both these cycles have their own share of contributing towards relaxing our mind and body completely.

I was amused to understand that these sleep cycles do paralyse our body when we are at night. That’s why we do not walk an inch and still feel we have travelled places in our dreams! Dreams are a creation of REM sleep and a mechanism through which all our accumulated and processed emotions are released. Had this “emotional release mechanism” not been made by God, we would have got up every morning with the burden of yesterday’s stresses!

Did you know that, on average, people consume as much as 36 GB of information daily? It was also interesting to read that dreams play a crucial role in transforming all such inputs into knowledge. That is why we career counsellors suggest students get a good eight hours of sleep at night. This is the time our brain requires to assimilate all the lessons learned / data acquired and convert them into wisdom and life skills. 

God created ‘nights’ because nights attract sleep! There is a hormone secreted in the human body which causes sleep to happen. The name of this hormone is Melatonin, which is generated only in the dark. 

Coming back to the evil of smartphones. The light oozed by these phones leads to the suppression of Melatonin, and thus, sleep gets lost. Accordingly, the first blame for destroying a good night’s sleep must go to Thomas Edison, who invented the light bulb. In the modern world context, the smartphone is the bigger devil. 

The sleep damage chain works like this:

• Smart screens release light all the while
• The blue light suppresses Melatonin
• This disrupts the REM and NREM sleep cycles
• The accumulated pressures of yesterday do not get flushed out through dreams and other REM sleep functions
• We get up feeling sluggish and tired in the morning
• Our day begins on a slow note, and the productivity reduces

When the above cycle repeats for days together, it causes a devastating impact on human abilities. I hope the insights shared above shall make people aware of two essential things:

1. The importance of a good night’s sleep
2. The harmful effects of using phones before we sleep.

Note: I am not a sleep scientist and have quoted technical data on human mind behaviour based on online research. I put on record specific credit to Mr Matthew Walker for the content and ideas quoted from his book ‘Why We Sleep’!

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/the-next-step/who-killed-my-sleep/