To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...
What do you think about technology? Is it helping you in life or is it hindering? Can you go a week, a day, a morning, an hour without checking your phone or any of your devices?
Dr. Larry Rosen is a scientist researching how technology and our brains function together. His study determined that technology, namely smart phones with its notifications and blue lights disrupts our sleep. It makes sense that the emissions from the blue light of devices can make it difficult to fall asleep, but it is also the notifications, blips, dings during the day that can cause sleeping problems. All those alerts can cause anxiety, perceived or not, and can cause increases in cortisol levels. He writes:
“My colleagues and I at California State University, Dominguez Hills, conducted sleep research that stems from my lab’s work on the “psychology of technology,” where we have discovered two important variables that encourage us to use (and misuse) technology, thereby losing sleep: (1) poor executive functioning, which includes our (in)ability to pay attention, problem solve, control our impulses, and make decisions, and (2) anxiety. In our work, anxiety is sometimes referred to as FOMO, or the fear of missing out. We see this anxiety in the majority of smartphone users who feel uncomfortable if they are not in direct contact with their phones — and their many electronic connections — 24/7/365. A dead battery and no charger can bring upon a panic attack.”
His suggestion is to use our phones as a tool: to control the tool, not to have the tool control us. He writes in Harvard Business Journal:
“During the day, practice not reacting to incoming alerts or notifications like one of Pavlov’s dogs. Don’t check your phone every time it beeps. In fact, turn off notifications and check on a schedule to retrain your brain’s neurotransmitters (particularly cortisol). Start by checking every 15 minutes, and gradually increase that to 30 minutes or more. Tell your family, friends, and colleagues that you may not respond immediately, but you will within a specified amount of time, such as 30 minutes to an hour later.
Stop using all devices one hour prior to sleep.
Put all devices away in another room rather than keep them in the bedroom to discourage you from checking them during the night. (If you must keep a phone nearby in case of emergency, set it so that it only rings when certain people are calling, but still place it across the room and away from your bedside.)
An hour before bedtime, start dimming the room lights slowly to release melatonin.
During the last hour before bedtime, choose an activity that your brain will find predictable and, thus, not anxiety-provoking. Consider any of the following:
Watch a television show that you love, maybe even a repeat.
Read a paper book (or use a Kindle which doesn’t emit blue light) by a familiar author.
Listen to music that is very familiar like a playlist of your favorite songs. If you need a device to do this, burn CDs and get a CD player. (The key is to use a device that doesn’t have internet access, email, or a phone.) Keep the volume low.
If you awaken in the middle of the night, try this trick: have a song lyric in mind (not the whole song) that you plan to sing in your mind over and over to block the anxiety and allow you to fall back to sleep. Another option is to learn one of many meditation techniques and practice and use those skills to calm your mind.” (https://hbr.org/2015/08/research-shows-how-anxiety-and-technology-are-affecting-our-sleep)
I can relate to Dr. Rosen’s anecdote about the panic attacks with uncharged phones. I had a similar experience one time when I traveled by myself to our little cottage get-away. At the time we did not have landline service and only relied upon our cell phones. I had a couple days of panic while I saw my usage bar shrinking as I was trying to figure out why my phone was not charging. (And yes, we had power and I did have the charging cord.). The thing is, my panic was totally unnecessary. I was not in any place that could be called the hinter land. I had neighbors closer than 50 feet. If I needed to contact family members I am sure that the neighbors would’ve helped. I could’ve certainly driven to the phone store to assist me. Worst case financial scenario would be that I would’ve had to buy a new phone. I was in a position of options which did not need to include panicking. Before cell phones, I certainly visited places that did not have phone service or service readily available. Back then, the likelihood of my having a problem was just a probable as now, but I never panicked back then.
I have been thinking Dr. Rosen’s research and my smart phone usage and my difficulty in sleeping at times- waking up @ 3 am. Is there a correlation? I am wondering if I have been too attentive to my phone- letting it dictate my day rather than the other way around. I am trying to implement some changes: namely responding to the phone at specific intervals in my work day and eliminating any notifications.
What about you? How are you with your smart phone? Are you always looking at it? Or do you not know where it is? Do have trouble falling asleep or in waking up in the wee hours of the morning? To what do you attribute the lack of sleep?
According to Dr. Rosen, when asking respondents how often they look at their phone, a person might say 30-40 times a day. In collecting the data, he determined it was more likely 70-150 times. (This was his review in 2017).
I found the following on reviews.org. They interviewed over 1,000 Americans about their cell phone habits as well as checking the phones’ screen time report. Below is the information from this last year. The statistics seem to be getting worse every year. (I do think the pandemic probably had something to do with it. Looking at our phones, trying to get more information about COVID was one way we could make sense of it all.)
In the history of humankind, the time frame of development and phone usage is just a blip. But in looking over the last century, any introduction of a new technology has increased our dependency on it, i.e. being controlled by it, rather than not: airplane, automobile, television, landline telephone, wireless/radio/stereo -not counting the 8 track tape :).
I wonder if we just have to settle-in to the phone idea. Think of it as a garden tool perhaps. I certainly do not think about or check my shovel all the time, only when I am prepared to use it.
If you look at the list of most important technological advances it varies depending upon the compiler: printing press, electricity, domestication of horses, penicillin, optic lens, paper currency, steel, internal combustible engine. I wonder did any of those inventions and technologies change brain chemistry as much as the phone?
Regardless, there has always been the tension between being so enamored by our inventions, our collective human cleverness if you will, and, in turn being “ruled” by our inventions and struggling not to do so.
For our physical and mental health, I think we need to humbly choose the latter.
Good Morning!
Are you a morning lark or night owl? I must confess that I am one of those annoyingly pleasant and immediately wide awake type of people. Just the other day my husband asked me if I was always this way? I guess after twenty-six years of marriage it finally got to him. Yes, I had to admit, I have always been this way. It's a blessing and a curse.
When I was little and slept over at friends' houses, I hated the mornings. My friends would be sound asleep for hours in the morning (or at least it seemed to me) as I had to lie there completely quiet. I felt that I couldn't turn on a light to read or even turn over too many times in bed for fear of waking up my host. It was excruciating.
Even as a teenager I was an early riser which really put me at a disadvantage in college. I just couldn't stay up all night and then sleep in the next morning like my peers. My body would get me up even if I only had a couple of hours of sleep. Needless to say, I was in a perpetual tired state the entire four years.
So, it was with interest I read an article in the Atlantic magazine describing the findings for different individuals' chronotypes, meaning "people are programmed or wired to sleep earlier or later in any 24-hour period". Or as some chronobiologists (people who study such things) call it; "social jet lag" - a "“misalignment of biological and social time.” German chronobiologist, Till Roenneberg has a classic book, Internal Time that declares, "early birds and night owls are born, not made. Sleep patterns may be the most obvious manifestation of the highly individualized biological clocks we inherit, but these clocks also regulate bodily functions from digestion to hormone levels to cognition. Living at odds with our internal timepieces can make us chronically sleep deprived and more likely to smoke, gain weight, feel depressed, fall ill, and fail geometry. By understanding and respecting our internal time, we can live better."
Some chronobiologists are behind the movement to have high schools start later so that teens can get a full night sleep. With their studies they have noted health consequences with people who don't fit societal wake/sleep patterns; the individuals who are not tired and can't go to bed yet still have to align their waking schedules to a societal pattern. Just think about high schoolers who start their three homework at 10 or 11 pm and then have to be in class, ready to participate at 7:20 am. There is no way that they are receiving their seven hours (the very least) of sleep.
Another psychologist, Michael Breus has capitalized on this idea of sleep and ideal times to be productive with his book, The Power of When. You can take an online quiz to determine your chronotype. He categorizes people into animal types: dolphin, lion, bear or wolf. I took the quiz. No surprise that I am a lion- the morning person type. In reading the characteristics it reminds me of a horoscope- pleasant and positive generic statements. In some ways I didn't need a quiz to figure it out. But, if I buy his book I can find out when it is the best time to do anything. "'When' is the ultimate life-hack. If you didn’t change a thing about what you do and how you do it, and only made micro-adjustments to when you do it, you’d be healthier, happier and more productive, starting right now!"
It seems that if you boil down the psychology, what is really being reviewed are people's sleep patterns and habits. It doesn't matter if you are a morning or night person but how much good sleep you get.
Makes sense. If you are well rested, you can be productive when you are awake whether that is early morning or late at night. The problem arises when our sleep and wake times don't jive with others.
If we didn't have interact with others and could just do our individual thing, it wouldn't matter when we slept or woke. But because we live in this world with lots of people with different habits and chronotypes, it does matter. And, when we suffer from social jet lag, we can suffer physically: gastrointestinal problems, difficulty concentrating, trouble sleeping, headaches, poor psychomotor coordination.
We need to maximize how we live and how we sleep so that we stay as healthy as we can. Here are some tips to get started thinking if you are a morning person, mid-day or night person:
- Know yourself. If you haven't figured out your best times of day to be creative, to exercise, to socialize, etc. you can try Michael Breus' online quiz. While I wouldn't change my entire life based on the findings, it does give you a basic assessment and can start you thinking. Click here.
- List the things you need to do. List out all that you must accomplish during the day: physical activity, intellectual pursuits, work meetings, etc. List when they normally occur during the day. List the time when it would ideal for you based on your chronotype rhythm- early morning, mid-morning, afternoon, etc.
- Determine a schedule with your ideal time. If you can, try to design a schedule so that the things that you have to do can be done during your ideal, "at your best" time. Of course, sometimes we don't have any say in the matter. Our jobs may dictate that we do a task at a specific time regardless of our "best" times. But maybe things are scheduled because they have always been done that way and nobody had ever asked to try something different. Who would've guessed that certain school systems are changing the start time for high schoolers based on their sleep and life cycle.
- Practice a small change in your schedule. If your best time to concentrate is after lunch, try blocking that time for your creative projects or intellectual pursuits. See how it goes. Are you more productive? Do you enjoy the task at hand because you were fully engaged? How is your sleep pattern? Can you get eight hours of good sleep? Do you need to change some of your sleeping habits to accommodate your chronotype? Ensuring you go to bed earlier or rising later?
- Revel in your blessings of how you are made. I always thought my early morning chipper-ness was a curse but I have come to accept it and to be grateful for it. I can get a lot done in the early morning hours- almost a full day of work by 10 am.
What about you? Are you a morning lark or night owl? More importantly, how did you sleep last night?