Should you turn off your smartphone before going to bed?

Like every other tech devices that we owned, our smartphones have become part of our daily life. We do not use them only for casual things such as calls and texts, but to also run our businesses, chat with our customers, make orders, navigate the city, make appointments, schedule our events, and lots more. They have become the part and parcel of our daily routine as we wake up everyday.

Since we can do a lot of things on our smartphones, we rely heavily on them to get us through the day. But do we need them at bedtimes when all activities have been put on hold so we can enjoy our night sleep? Is it really necessary that our smartphones are off when we are about to go to bed to have that beautiful sleep? I mean, should we turn our phones off before going to bed?

Who doesn’t hate disturbances when taking a short nap in the office during the day after long hours of stress ?. We all look forward to lying in our bed in the night after long hours of labor in the day. But for some of us that rely on our smartphones to get things done so we can feed our family, we may find it difficult to turn our phones off when going to bed for the sake of “who knows, anything might come through when I am least expecting.” What man wouldn’t do to survive.

Also read: Is it bad to use smartphones while charging?

But then, there are some of us that does not rely on our phones to get our jobs done. We are at freedom and liberty to decide the state we want to put our phones on when going to bed – in airplane mode, vibration only, or to turn them off. A nurse or a doctor working in an emergency ward wouldn’t have that kind of freedom. The question now is, can it affect us psychologically when we leave our smartphones on during bedtime?

Yes, it might. Imagine your phone suddenly ringing at 1:30am in the morning when you have deeply fallen asleep. You may wake up with a shock that may lead to headaches throughout the day, or that may deprave you of falling asleep again. When you begin to receive calls night by night because you leave your phone on during bedtime, your brain will adjust and your sleep pattern will change – you may not fall into deep sleep (REM) again.

Another reason why you may not want to keep your smartphone “on” during bedtime is because of radiation. As a general rule of thumb, our smartphones are not advised to be placed at our bedside or under our pillow when we are sleeping as it may affect our brains and cause diseases like brain cancer and tumors. Sleeping with our smartphones by our sides can also negatively affect our sleep cycle and sleep pattern, which of course can deteriorate our health over time.

In conclusion, it is not advisable to leave our smartphones turned on when we go to bed at night unless it is critically important that we do so. If your daughter is on a night journey and you want to make sure she can reach you incase something goes sideway, then you have all the reasons in the world to keep your phone on. It is for the safety of your daughter. Incase of any emergency, it is moral that we do not off our smartphones.

Personally, I put my smartphone into airplane mode when I’m about to sleep. I don’t receive night calls, so I don’t see any reason why I should leave it on. If you do and it’s not because of any emergency, I suggest you do the same. Our health and our fitness are very important.