Before you fell asleep last night did you make sure to turn off your lights and the TV glow from across the room? I always have liked to sleep in the dark, but I know many people that cannot fall asleep without a light or a TV in the background. Evidence is showing us that this may not be healthy for us at all.
A study in England found that out of the 738 students studied at random, teens that frequently watched TV before bed were four times more likely to wake up several times during the night. The results were very similar when it came to playing video games and listening to music right before bed. Dr. Nanci Yuan, of the Sleep Center at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, California said, “The advent of technology has made every age group, but especially teenagers, have difficulties with their sleep.” Overall there is an increase in the lack of sleep throughout the society, but prominently with teenagers as a direct result of technology.
This study must open our eyes to the truth and I believe it starts with the parents. It is the parents job make sure that their children are in a dark room and are not exposed to technology before they go to bed because they must understand the importance of a goodnight sleep. If an even bigger study was done with a bigger sample size then, people would be most aware and convinced that this is a problem facing or society today.
There are some things that each on of us can do before we go to bed to make sure that we are doing the best that we can to help solve this problem. This includes making it as dark as we can and blocking out all of the light possible. Also having a set routine to go off of can help tremendously.