Is Technological Advancement Making You Sleepless?

In the olden times, people had different ways to learn and communicate. Books, manuscripts were used to spread knowledge while special pigeons were used to send important news. As times progressed, communication between people and interaction with the outside world just started getting easier. Day by day, new techniques came into existence making people sleepless [pun intended, keep reading].

Now all of these complex mechanisms have been made accessible to the masses through digital screens. Our laptop, computers and yeah, our beloved pocket friendly [;-)] smartphones have it all in them. I wanted to know the impact they were having on my life. Lock down somehow brought this opportunity and my experience gave me crystal clear conclusions. I, having nothing to do on most of my days, started spending time on my smartphone, a chunk of it taken up by video apps and search engines— ah my saviors!

I considered it unimportant to listen to the wise old words that overuse is disastrous since I was just bored to death. Soon, the effects showed in. Day after day, I started losing my peace of mind and my overall quality of life decreased. Of course this caused a chain reaction and I immersed myself more in smartphones just to get some solace. Then right a few days of using smartphones everyday for nearly 5–7 hrs. on an average, I lost sleep.

I started waking up on nights and couldn’t sleep. One or two hours and before I knew it, sun rays shone through the windows. I felt something had to be done. My eyes started swelling and one fine day, after no sleep, I looked in the mirror and my face was filled with pimples. Moreover I am a person who does not touch my face often. Not that I had clear skin whatsoever, but they just started looking more prominent. Not only that I lost my concentration and did not feel like doing anything. Then came a day when I used my phone for nine hours straight and that was it. Now I had to do something about it. I had to build myself, not break it down.

I motivated myself to gain back my motivation and went on a complete digital detox for one whole day. No screens touched. Unbelievably, miracles took place. I slept really well and also had a great afternoon nap. In the morning when I looked at my face, it looked different. My eyes had turned back to normal and pimples had settled down. Even the people around me noticed. I felt recharged and motivated, motivated enough to start writing on Medium about my experiences.

I felt motivated enough to follow my lifelong passion to write. The conclusion? Am I saying tech is bad? Not necessarily. But excess of anything is. We are so hooked on to our screens that we lose track of time and peace of mind just to keep wondering what caused it. This just causes a chain reaction and forces us to spend more time on screens in hopes of improving our condition. Little we do know that we just start going down the slide and depending on the length of the slides ie: our tolerance some of us hit the ground, look up and realize our mistakes. Some, sadly, never do.

Scientifically stating, the blue light emitted by screens on cell phones, computers, tablets, and televisions restrain the production of melatonin, the hormone that controls our sleep/wake cycle or circadian rhythm. Reducing melatonin makes it harder to fall and stay asleep. Exposure to light at night is linked to diabetes, heart disease, and obesity. Yet preventative measures can be taken.

During lock down, I was blocked out from sunlight as well. So one fine day I decided to bask in the morning Sun for 15 mins. and felt fresh and good throughout the day. Spending time outdoors, shutting down screens 3 hours before bedtime, limiting use of smartphones only to specific purposes are all little steps we can take to incorporate a major change in our life and stabilize the rhythm.

Hence yes, technology has made us sleepless in many ways than we can possibly imagine. Its we who need to choose the manner of it. And yes, a day is enough to change for the better.