What can you do if you can’t get enough sleep? You feel that you are always tired, even when you are sleeping 7 or 8 hours at night? Well, put your phone away before you go to sleep and trust me, it will drastically improve your sleeping quality.
Gladly, sleeping can be improved with different kind of factors, which can help you to fall asleep even faster and get the well-deserved rest at the end of a rough day. You can play with your room temperature, limit your caffeine intake or apply some sleeping techniques. But one of the simplest way to sleep better is to stop using your phone before sleeping. How do I know this easy fact? Well, this is exactly what I did in the last 30 days.
Even though I have a well-developed sleeping pattern, checking my phone or watching TV before sleeping is part of my evening habit and I always wondered if I can have an even more relaxing and refilling sleeping if I start to give up on these activities.
For the mentioned reasons I decided to stop using my phone or watching TV 30 minutes before I go to sleep for 30 days. Moreover, it is a proven fact that screen time can mess up our sleep as it keeps our mind psychologically engaged. The brain doesn’t need information or something which keeps it active and awake, when it’s time to rest – so it seems to be logical to stop checking your phone before sleeping.
Secondly, the blue light from cellphones can mimic daylight, which can affect our body’s natural sleep hormone called melatonin. If we won’t let the brain to take a proper rest because of the screen lights, sooner or later it can disrupt the body’s natural inner clock and rhythm.
After all of the evidences I can say, that there were no doubts of me trying this challenge: 30 days without using my phone before going to sleep.
Right now I would like to share with you 4 critical changes what I have experienced during my no phone challenge.
1. Improved Sleeping Quality
My expectation was that putting away my phone before sleeping will help me to have an even more relaxing sleep and this is exactly what happened. Sleeping plays an important role in my life and I always tried to do as much as I can to have a solid, working sleeping pattern. I like to drink a cup of lemongrass tea before I go to sleep and I also prefer to wake up and fall asleep every day at the same time.
Even though I paid attention to the mentioned factors I still had difficulties to wake myself up. Somedays I couldn’t imagine my mornings without a huge cup of coffee and to be honest it was a bit frustrating that I’m highly dependent on such a substance.
During my 30 days of no phone before bedtime challenge I never experienced such a thing. It seemed like that I found the last missing piece, which was needed for the perfect sleeping routine. I felt myself energized after I woke up and there were no disrupts during the nights, so I can say that was definitely a huge advantage of not checking my phone before sleeping.
2. Improved Attention
By the end of the day we might feel relaxed when we are watching some silly videos on our phones or when we simply scroll through different social media platforms. We would like to empty our mind and finally switch off after a rough day. This is exactly what we do with my girlfriend after a tiring day, which seems to be reasonable right?
For solidarity she also joined to my challenge and in the beginning it was strange not doing the same thing we used to do. In the first few days it was like:
“Um..okay, so what’s next? What should we do instead watching our phones?”
It was eye-opening how we slowly forgot to talk before sleeping. I mean sure we talk with each other even when we checked our phones, but it was a completely different communication, as we did 2 things at the same time, therefore we are unable to completely pay attention to each other.
We have noticed on ourselves that we started to pay attention for the smaller details. We were more curious about the stories we have shared with each other. Even though our relationship is working well, that was an excellent side effect of the no phone challenge.
Lastly, these kind of fulfilling conversations helped us to fall asleep even faster so I can say that not checking our phones was an amazing idea as it resulted better sleeping quality and we also rediscovered something in our relationship which was “missing”. I think it is a nice thing, isn’t it?
3. Decreased Level of Stress and Frustration
Putting away my phone before bedtime for 30 days proved me, that checking the screen can affect my mood drastically before sleeping. I always tried to limit my time on social media as back in the days I have experienced feelings like jealousy because I started to compare myself to others.
Moreover, the feeds are full of fake or depressing news and I think none of us would like to fall asleep with these kind of things in our mind. Personally, I like to imagine a calming picture in the last moment before I sleep and I try to exclude all kind of negativity.
During the 30 days of no phone before bed challenge I have noticed on myself that I became less stressful and frustrated and I think this mostly comes from the fact, that I didn’t poison my mind with my phone. And not only social media played a huge part in this process, but also my habit, that I checked my work related mails in the evening hours. It happened way too many times, that I got already frustrated and angry before I went to sleep as I knew very well what will happen the next day.
In my highly stressed period it was not rare to wake up suddenly at night and to feel a slight tingling in the back of my head. I assume that was the consequence of not letting my brain switch off before sleeping.
All in all, I can say that not checking my phone before sleeping was one of the most beneficial thing I did to improve my sleeping and overall mood. None of the last, in these days I wake up every morning calm and peaceful instead of being grumpy.
4. Increased Meaningful Moments
The last crucial change what I have noticed on myself during my 30 days of no phone before bed challenge, that I have more meaningful moments before sleeping. After talking with my girlfriend and saying good night to each other, there are some moments which can be still used up usefully. When I checked my phone there was something always on my mind which was related to it.
Sometimes I was wondering what kind of world we live in. What kind of tasks I have to solve next day at my workplace? How one of my friends was capable of organizing a luxurious vacation again?
When I was finally able to put down my phone this kind of behavior changed instantly. Worry was replaced by visualization as I started to plan with excitement what kind of activities I would like to do… and this feeling was what I missed the most.
It was liberating to control my mind with that kind of ease and I was finally not affected by negative emotions. Literally, during my challenge I fell asleep with a smile on my face, as I fulfilled myself with positivity thanks to not checking my phone before bedtime.
In the end I must confess my realization: checking my phone was an escape and a permanent solution to fill up the gap, what I had in the evening hours. I thought that it’s okay to scroll my phone if I didn’t have anything to do but right now I can say that I was completely wrong.
There is always something worthier around you, which deserves more attention than your phone. Take care of your family, play with your pet or simply take care of yourself – read a book, meditate or do something beneficial for your own body. I am a 100% sure that you won’t regret not checking your phone. Believe me, there is nothing you will miss.