Smartphones hurting our ability to sleep and work

An article from the Wall Street Journal discusses how smartphones make us tired which can both hurt our ability to sleep at night and to be productive during the day.

For a productive day at work tomorrow, give the smartphone a rest tonight.

Reading and sending work email on a smartphone late into the evening doesn’t just make it harder to get a decent night’s sleep. New research findings show it also exhausts workers by morning and leaves them disengaged by the next afternoon.

That means the way most knowledge workers do their jobs—monitoring their iPhones for notes from the boss long after the office day is done and responding to colleagues at all hours—ultimately makes them less effective, posit researchers from University of Florida, Michigan State University and University of Washington.

The scholars conducted two studies of workers’ nighttime technology habits, sleep duration and quality, energy and workplace engagement. In the first study, 82 mid- to high-level managers were asked every morning how many minutes they used their smartphone after 9:00 pm the night before and how many hours they slept. Then, they were asked to rate their agreement with statements like “I feel drained” and “Right now, it would take a lot of effort for me to concentrate on something.”

In the afternoon, they had to assess statements about work engagement, such as “Today while working, I forgot everything else around me.”

Prior studies have shown that staying focused and resisting distractions takes a lot of effort, so when smartphone use interferes with sleep, it takes a toll the next day.

“The benefit of smartphone use may…be offset by the inability of employees to fully recover from work activities while away from the office,” the researchers write.

After accounting for sleep quality, the researchers found that work-related smartphone use in the evening was associated with fewer hours of sleep. The subjects who recorded shorter nights also reported depleted reserves of self-control, and those who felt morning exhaustion also indicated they were less engaged during the day, a domino effect that shows how an unending workday ultimately leads to poorer work.

The second study, which involved 161 workers, measured how late-night tech use—on smartphones, laptops, tablets and TV—can disrupt sleep and next-day work engagement.

In her book, “Sleeping With Your Smartphone,” Harvard Business School professor Leslie Perlow studied executives at Boston Consulting Group who were given a chance to disconnect on a regular basis. The executives became more excited about their work, felt more satisfied about their professional and personal lives and even became more collaborative and efficient.

Using any kind of electronic device affects sleep quantity and focus the following day, but smartphones are especially draining. That’s partly because the always-on, always-handy phone the first device we turn to, says Christopher M. Barnes, an assistant professor of management at University of Washington’s Michael G. Foster School of Business and a co-author of the paper. Having a screen so close to our faces probably doesn’t help us prepare for sleep, he adds.

The researchers don’t yet know if there’s a particular threshold at which smartphone use begins to affect sleep habits, but even 30 minutes before bedtime can take a toll, Barnes says.

The fix, researchers say, is to put down the phone and enjoy the evening. But that’s easier said than done, so long as managers send emails at 10:30 p.m. and expect responses by 10:31 pm. Barnes says real change will have to come from the top, with managers setting an example by not sending those messages in the first place, or at least toning down expectations on response time.

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Blue light can fight fatigue during the day

A study shows that blue light from phones and computers can alleviate fatigue throughout the day.

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have found that exposure to short wavelength, or blue light, during the biological day directly and immediately improves alertness and performance. These findings are published in the February issue ofSleep.

"Our previous research has shown that blue light is able to improve alertness during the night, but our new data demonstrates that these effects also extend to daytime light exposure," said Shadab Rahman, PhD, a researcher in BWH's Division of Sleep Medicine and lead author of this study. "These findings demonstrate that prolonged blue light exposure during the day has an an alerting effect."

In order to determine which wavelengths of light were most effective in warding off fatigue, the BWH researchers teamed with George Brainard, PhD, a professor of neurology at Thomas Jefferson University, who developed the specialized light equipment used in the study. Researchers compared the effects of blue light with exposure to an equal amount of green light on alertness and performance in 16 study participants for 6.5 hours over a day. Participants then rated how sleepy they felt, had their reaction times measured and wore electrodes to assess changes in brain activity patterns during the light exposure.

The researchers found that participants exposed to blue light consistently rated themselves as less sleepy, had quicker reaction times and fewer lapses of attention during the performance tests compared to those who were exposed to green light. They also showed changes in brain activity patterns that indicated a more alert state.

"These results contribute to our understanding of how light impacts the brain and open up a new range of possibilities for using light to improve human alertness, productivity and safety," explained Steven Lockley, PhD, neuroscientist at BWH and senior investigator of the study. "While helping to improve alertness in night workers has obvious safety benefits, day shift workers may also benefit from better quality lighting that would not only help them see better but also make them more alert."

Researchers note that the next big challenge is to figure out how to deliver better lighting. While natural light is ideal, many people do not have access to daylight in their schools, homes or work places. In addition to improvements in daylight access, the advent of new, more controllable lighting technologies may help enable researchers to develop 'smart' lighting systems designed to maximize the beneficial effects of light for human health, productivity and safety.

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Lack of sleep is a health issue for adults

This article discusses how lack of sleep is a huge issue for adults, and what those who aren't getting enough sleep should to do fix it.

America is full of sleepy people.

Adults should get between seven and nine hours of sleep each night, but most average between five and six, according to Shari Newman, clinical manager of sleep services at Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System

“We are sleepier today than we have ever been before,” Newman said. “Sleepy is an epidemic.”

When we are sleepy, we don't exercise as we should. We eat too much thinking it will give us energy to get through the day and we drink coffee and other caffeine-heavy drinks because we need that added boost, which only causes us to have trouble sleeping at night. The problems reoccur the next day.

“Sleepiness is adding to the obesity problem,” said Newman, seated in a room at North Grove Medical Center in Spartanburg. The room resembles a small hotel room instead of a typical doctor's office exam room. A tidy bed with white sheets sits against one wall. A TV sits in one corner. A bathroom, complete with a shower, is connected.

Newman said as many as 3,000 people stay in one of these 12 rooms each year. They come in around 8:30 p.m., go to sleep and leave the next morning around 6:30 a.m. While they sleep, doctors analyze their sleep patterns, studying brain waves and any breathing irregularities. There are 88 types of sleep disorders, Newman said.

The average adult spends a third of his life sleeping, according to the National Sleep Foundation. If you're 75 years old, that means you have slept for 25 years. How we sleep and how often we sleep affects the other two-thirds of our life, studies say.

Not only can sleepiness lead to obesity, studies have found other relationships between the quantity and quality of one's sleep and health problems. Blood pressure usually falls during the sleep cycle, however, interrupted sleep can adversely affect this normal decline, leading to hypertension and cardiovascular problems. Research has also shown that insufficient sleep impairs the body's ability to use insulin, which can lead to the onset of diabetes, according to the National Sleep Foundation. If you're sleepy, you can have a negative mood and behavior, decreased productivity, and safety issues in the home, on the job and on the road. A recent study by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that children who do not adhere to a regular bedtime are more likely to exhibit behavior problems during the day.

“We know sleepy folks really are at risk,” Newman said. “You have to plan for good sleep and make sleep the priority it needs to be.”

She adds that you should be able to lie down and go to sleep within 10 minutes and wake up without needing an alarm clock.

“If that's not happening, why? What is going on with your sleep?”

If you have trouble falling asleep at night, consider these tips provided by Spartanburg Regional Sleep Services:

* Lie down when you feel sleepy. If you don't fall asleep within 30 minutes, don't keep looking at the clock. Get up and go to another area where it's nice and quiet and relaxing. When you feel sleepy again, go back to bed. If you keep tossing and turning, you get anxious and frustrated and it's not going to happen.

* Go to sleep and get up at the same time everyday, even on weekends. “A lot of us try to catch up on sleep over the weekends. But sleep is not money, you can't save it up or put it in a bank. You have got to do it everyday.”

* Do not have caffeine within six hours of bedtime. Caffeine is a drug and it takes longer to clear from your system than a lot of people realize.

* Add exercise to your daily schedule. Exercise can deepen your sleep

• Insulate your room against sound and light
• Keep your room temperature moderate. Exceedingly warm or cold temperatures can disturb sleep. Generally, we sleep better when it's cooler.
• Consider eating a light, caffeine-free snack before bedtime. Both hunger and excessive fullness can disturb sleep.
• Avoid excessive liquids in the evening so you don't have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
• Don't smoke tobacco.
• Avoid alcohol, especially in the evening. Alcohol may help you fall asleep more easily, your sleep will be disturbed later by the alcohol.
• Keep work materials such as computers and television out of the bedroom.

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How much sleep you get is not linked to tiredness

A new study claims that how much or how little sleep you get is not an indicated of how tired you feel.

NEW SWEDISH RESEARCH has shown that there is little or no relation between how much sleep people get at night and how fatigued they feel.

“The length of sleep is not a good measurement to analyse whether we get enough sleep or not,” Torbjoern Aakerstedt told AFP of the studies conducted at the Stress Research Institute of Stockholm University.

“It’s genetically conditioned and dependent on age and health,” he said.

Aakerstedt’s team has conducted three different studies, one of which investigated the sleep patterns of nearly 6,000 individuals.

The research suggests that the number of hours slept is of much less importance in determining how a person functions throughout the day.

“If you feel fine and dynamic during the day, you’ve probably slept enough,” said Aakerstedt.

The research, to be published later this year, found the average number of hours slept during a working week is six hours 55 minutes, with an extra hour’s sleep during holidays.

The researcher said that 20-year-olds should sleep eight hours on average, whilst 60-year-olds require only six.

“But there is no general average,” Aakerstedt added. “Twenty-year-olds can sleep even more, but still be tired during the day” as their brain is still developing.

Yet, although more sleep does not mean more energy, no one should sleep too little, as it affects one’s health, he said.

Too little sleep can result in a weak immune system, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, weight gain, workplace incidents and traffic accidents.

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