Why You Shouldn’t Use Your Phone Before Bed

Up to sixty percent of college students suffer from poor sleep quality. However, this problem has an easy fix! All you need to do is improve your sleep hygiene, which means cultivating better habits in order to get a healthy amount of sleep. One of the worst habits that virtually all college students are guilty of is spending time staring at their cell phones before bed. It may not seem like a big deal, but this habit is actually detrimental to your health and is standing between you and a solid eight hours of sleep.

The endless scrolling on Instagram and TikTok isn’t as harmless as it seems. The gratification that social media provides results in increased alertness at night and prolonged blue light exposure that harms your eyes. Additionally, the tossing and turning caused by the increased attention will leave you less alert in the morning.

Like many college students, you likely use your phone as an alarm, forcing you to sleep with your phone within arm’s reach. This makes it easy to check notifications if you wake up in the middle of the night. However, you must resist the urge to check. Those notifications will still be there in the morning.  

If the notifications are too tempting, you could try turning on “Do Not Disturb.” This feature stops the alerts when you receive messages, phone calls, or other notifications. If you’re worried about missing an emergency phone call, some advanced features allow calls from your “favorites.” This feature does not silence your alarm. Other than that, you could try using an actual alarm clock in place of your phone.

If these tips seem impossible, just remember to try your best and to take it one night at a time. However, the more regularly you avoid using your phone before bed, the less you will miss it, resulting in a better nighttime routine that will do wonders for improving your sleep hygiene.