The 5 Pains You Might Pay for Using Your Phone Before Bed!
The 5 Pains You Might Pay for Using Your Phone Before Bed!Mr. Wu, a 62-year-old man, didn't have many hobbies
The 5 Pains You Might Pay for Using Your Phone Before Bed!
Mr. Wu, a 62-year-old man, didn't have many hobbies. After learning to use a smartphone, he became addicted to browsing news and watching short videos, especially before bed. He thought it would help him fall asleep faster, but in recent months, he's been experiencing eye strain, neck pain, and frequent nighttime awakenings. A doctor diagnosed his discomfort as related to his habit of using his phone before bed. The doctor pointed out that using your phone before bed not only affects sleep quality, but could also lead to these 5 types of suffering.
1. Using Your Phone Before Bed Makes Your Brain Restless
For modern people, a phone in hand is the final "comfort" before bedtime. Every night, the blue light from the screen illuminates the face, as if all tiredness and worries can be temporarily wiped away. But behind this short-lived comfort lurks a huge danger - "revenge bedtime procrastination." A few minutes of scrolling through the screen may keep your brain excited for hours, with consequences too severe to ignore.
A study in the United States showed that nearly 80% of people suffer from "revenge bedtime procrastination" delaying bedtime for temporary pleasure. This behavior may seem like a way to temporarily escape the stress of the day, but in reality, it's depleting brain health. Blue light emitted from screens stimulates neurons in the brain, leading to the release of dopamine and adrenaline, keeping the brain in a state of high arousal. The result? Sleepiness is completely dispelled, and the brain keeps replaying the content you just browsed, while real sleepiness is slow to come. This brief pleasure brought by "desire" can eventually evolve into long-term sleep disorders.
Furthermore, the habit of using your phone before bed has deeper implications. Studies have found that using a phone for just 8 minutes is enough to keep the brain in an excited state for an hour. This means that even after turning off the phone, the brain can't immediately switch to sleep mode, but instead stays active under the influence of the screen. Even if you eventually force yourself to close your eyes, the delay in the REM sleep period will reduce overall sleep quality.
2. 5 Health Risks of Using Your Phone Before Bed
When this small device becomes a "must-have" for people before going to bed, the underlying health risks begin to emerge. Especially in a dark room, spending the last few minutes browsing on your phone, this seemingly harmless act is silently harming multiple parts of your body.
1. Eyes
Using your phone before bed, especially in a dark environment after turning off the lights, causes significant damage to your eyes from the blue light emitted from the phone screen. Over the long term, this can lead to dry eyes, blurred vision, and even serious eye diseases such as glaucoma and cataracts. Especially when lights are off, pupils dilate automatically, absorbing more blue light, making the damage to the retina even more severe. This damage is often irreversible, and vision decline becomes unavoidable over time. Therefore, although browsing your phone brings temporary pleasure, its long-term damage to your eyes cannot be ignored.
2. Neck
Every night before bed, the posture of lying in bed and looking down at your phone will gradually increase pressure on your neck, eventually leading to neck hyperextension. The physiological curvature of the neck should be naturally relaxed, but when you spend a long time looking down at your phone, the natural curvature of the neck is forced to twist, resulting in hyperextension. Worse still, neck damage is often hidden. By the time symptoms appear, the problem has become serious. Therefore, while the attractiveness of the phone is huge, the health of your neck deserves more attention.
3. Mental Health
The constant flow of information on the screen stimulates the brain, leading to overactive nervous systems, affecting night-time emotion regulation. Many people maintain good moods during the day at work, but at night, when browsing their phones, they are bothered by various negative information, and anxiety and depression follow. Especially in the quiet hours of the night, the contrast between the "perfect life" displayed on social media and real life is more likely to cause psychological gaps and exacerbate the accumulation of negative emotions. This long-term emotional fluctuation can lead to decreased sleep quality and even trigger more serious psychological problems such as depression and anxiety.
4. Skin Effects
Long-term nighttime phone use deprives the skin of adequate rest, disrupts metabolic function, and easily triggers a series of skin problems. Dark circles, pimples, and dull skin are common problems after staying up late. The effects of blue light on the skin have been scientifically proven. Blue light not only accelerates skin aging, but also damages the skin's barrier function, leading to skin sensitivity and fragility. Those who are accustomed to spending a long time on their phones before bed often have more obvious skin problems.
5. Sleep Deprivation
Long-term use of phones before bed, leading to shorter sleep duration and decreased sleep quality, not only affects your mental state the next day, but can also trigger a series of chronic diseases. Sleep deprivation can weaken the immune system, increasing the risk of disease; it can also affect heart health, increasing the incidence of heart disease and hypertension.
3. Mastering the Right Way to Use Your Phone in 1 Minute!
Since you can't resist the temptation to use your phone before bed, why not learn how to enjoy it with minimal cost? Mastering the correct use posture and methods can strike a balance between health and entertainment.
First, you must maintain a suitable lighting environment when using your phone. The contrast between the blue light from the phone screen and a dark environment can quickly lead to eye fatigue and even irreversible damage.
Next, posture issues are equally important. The best posture is to keep your head and neck at the same level, avoiding looking down or up as much as possible. If you must lie on your side to use your phone, be sure to change sides regularly to avoid long-term pressure on one side of your shoulders and neck.
In addition to lighting and posture, eye rest is essential. This can be achieved using the "20-20-20 rule" every 20 minutes of phone use, look up at something 20 feet away (about 6 meters) for 20 seconds. This allows your eyes to relax and relieves eye strain caused by staring at nearby objects. This little trick is very simple, but very effective. For those who can't put down their phones, developing this habit can alleviate eye strain to a certain extent.
4. Secrets to Improving Sleep Quality
While phones may bring temporary relaxation and entertainment before bed, they're also one of the culprits responsible for poor sleep quality. To truly enjoy high-quality sleep, in addition to adjusting your phone use habits, you also need to make comprehensive improvements to your overall lifestyle.
Many people may not realize that the quality of the sleep environment directly affects how quickly you fall asleep and the quality of your sleep. The optimal indoor temperature should be kept between 18 and 22 degrees Celsius. Being too hot or too cold can make it difficult to fall asleep. In addition, using blackout curtains or wearing a sleep mask can effectively block out external light sources, keeping the room sufficiently dark.
Dietary habits can also affect sleep quality. Feeling full can lead to stomach discomfort, and frequent nighttime awakenings can interrupt deep sleep. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid eating within two hours of bedtime, especially stimulating foods such as spicy foods and caffeinated beverages. For those who always feel hungry, you can choose some easy-to-digest snacks such as bananas or a small glass of warm milk, which contain sleep-inducing substances and actually help with sleep.
A regular sleep schedule and relaxing activities are also indispensable. Establish a regular sleep schedule so your body's biological clock becomes regular, making it easier to fall asleep each night. In addition, some relaxing activities before bed such as meditation, deep breathing, and yoga can effectively relieve daily stress and tension, preparing your body and mind for sleep. Therefore, to improve sleep quality, relaxing body and mind is the best "ritual" before bed.
Conclusion
The conflict between the temporary pleasure brought by the phone screen and the long-term harm to health has become a major concern in modern life. To avoid these negative effects, adjusting lifestyle habits, improving the sleep environment, and using phones correctly have become necessary tasks for everyone when enjoying the convenience of technology.
Improving sleep quality is not just about playing less on your phone, but about adjusting your lifestyle in all aspects. With a scientific and reasonable daily schedule, healthy eating habits, a comfortable sleep environment, and appropriate relaxation methods, people can maintain good physical and mental health even in a fast-paced life. Every day in the future can begin with sufficient sleep, allowing you to greet new challenges with renewed vigor.
We hope that this content can make you aware of the risks of using your phone before bed and learn how to find a balance between health and entertainment.
Reference information:
- [People who use their phones before bed for a long time, 5 kinds of pain may befall you, it is recommended to change it as soon as possible](https://www.toutiao.com/a7157186880216110152/)
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