Do you use your phone in bed, right up until you go to sleep?

Many see this as a way to relax and unwind after the workday, but it may not be as calming as you think.

To glean some insight into this, the team from Sleep Junkie recently surveyed 2,012 Americans, the majority of which regularly use their phones before sleep, in order to find out which apps have the biggest impact on their sleep patterns.

As per Sleep Junkie:

"We asked each participant to wear a smartwatch to record how long it took to fall asleep and the amount of time spent in the REM phase of the sleep cycle, as well as provide feedback on how tired they felt the next morning after using their designated app, in the hour before falling asleep."

As you can see in the below graphic, TikTok had the biggest impact, with those who spent their pre-sleep time scrolling through their ‘For You’ feeds ending up spending only 14% of their sleep cycle in the vital REM phase, almost half of the amount of REM sleep they should be getting. You can see how other apps fared below.

The good news is that Sleep Junkie identifies the biggest impact as blue light emission from your phone screen, which can be reduced by switching to dark mode in your apps. Sleep Junkie also recommends not using any electronics for at least two hours before sleeping.

Maybe the new year is a good time to implement new evening phone habits. You can read more in Sleep Junkie’s full report here.

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