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The ability to remember, learn or be creative plummets when sleep suffers. You know that drinking coffee too late in the day or going to bed at very different times can make good sleep hard to come by. But there's mounting evidence that tooling around on your phone before or in bed could be making things worse than you realize.
Recent research out of Brigham and Women's Hospital found that light-emitting e-readers (be it a tablet, phone or other glow-in-the-dark reader that shines a blue light) in the hours before bedtime can adversely affect sleep, yes, but also overall health, alertness and your circadian rhythm. In the study, participants who read on an iPad four hours before bed took longer to fall asleep and were less sleepy in the evening, yet were sleepier and less alert in the morning (even after eight hours of sleep).
Consider charging your phone in another room away from where you sleep, and reading an actual book or magazine to unwind instead -- and reserve your bed for unplugging in every sense of the word for a truly restful night.
Read more about how sleep affects your productivity.
--Posted by Lindsay Holmes
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