When bedtime (finally) rolls around, and you crawl into bed at night, I bet you are fairly ready for some shut-eye and a good night's sleep, mamas, no?
We all are, and rightly so. A good night's sleep does not only feel so good; but is also essential for our health, well-being and how we are going to be able to perform our duties, be them manager or mother, the next day. In fact, trying to work when you are sleep-deprived is pretty much the "cognitive equivalent of coming to work drunk," Arianna Huffington (of Huffington Post) recently explained to the Business Insider.
Huffington, who penned the book The Sleep Revolution after suffering from burn-out from working too much and not sleeping enough, warns that a lack of sleep will ultimately affect everything in your day-to-day life, from your productivity and overall performance at work, to your mental clarity and personal relationships with your children and spouse.
Making sure we get enough rest means making sleep a priority, and being willing to change some bad habits that can affect the time and quality of our sleep. These habits can include working out too late in the afternoon or eating a large meal right before bedtime, meaning your body is so busy trying to digest your dinner that it doesn't get a chance to "switch off" and relax.
But the number one bad habit so many of us are doing right before bedtime – that study after study is telling us can mess with our sleep? Staring at a screen.
Admit it; we are all guilty. Whether it is watching the latest Netflix documentary on your iPad or scrolling through Instagram or Pinterest on your phone, many of not only stare at screen before going to bed, we also now bring the screens into bed with us, continuing to stare at them until the very moment we decide it is time to sleep.
The problem? The LED screens. These tiny little screens emit a penetrative blue light that essentially tells our brains, 'Wake up! It's not time to go to sleep yet!' Which, you know, is not that great when, in fact, it is time to go asleep. Even more worryingly, some studies have shown that this blue light can actually damage vision and suppress production of melatonin—the hormone that helps us to fall asleep naturally.
Ariana Huffington admits she has solved this by banning screen time at bedtime.
"For me, the key is to every night before I'm going to go to sleep, thirty minutes before, turn off all of my devices and gently escort them out of my bedroom," she tells Business Insider."Now, now I read a book instead before falling asleep."
Do YOU still use your smartphone before going to sleep? Let us know in the comments or tweet us at @Herfamilydotie
