Counterpoint: Smartphones Can Help You Sleep

Inexpensive apps designed to help you sleep provide a compelling reason to bring your iPhone or Droid to the bedroom.

Previously, The Sleep Education Blog gave a rundown of the reasons why smartphones may keep you awake at night. It turns out there are some pros to go with those cons.
Both the App Store and the Android Marketplace are filled with all kinds of sleep-related downloadable programs. Some are handy, some not so much. Reviews on the Macworld website seem to reflect the varying quality of sleep apps.

For general audiences, white noise generators will be most useful. The free WhiteNoise app by TMSOFT seems to be the most accessible and popular. The noises the program generates range from relaxing to annoying. Try sleeping with the Oscillating Fan, Extreme Rain Pouring or Beach Waves Crashing and avoid the Chimes Chiming and Crickets Chirping sounds.

Another category of noise generators may not be as useful as advertised. The programs play ambient music embedded with nearly-inaudible sounds that signal your brain to sleep. The app is similar to a popular line of CDs available for purchase online. Unfortunately, there aren’t any peer-reviewed scientific studies to back up those claims. The app may be useful if you find the music relaxing. This blogger found the Vangelis-like new age muzak irritating.

Some apps allegedly track your sleep architecture if you place your phone under your pillow. The most popular app, the Sleep Cycle Alarm, even promises to wake you softly when you’re in the latest phase of sleep. There are no indications that this works.

You might instead want to try one of the programs where you can manually log your sleep. These are especially practical for people with insomnia or other sleep disorders. With a couple quick taps every morning you’ll have a full sleep diary prepared for your next visit to an AASM accredited sleep center.

Apps from WebMD, the Mayo Clinic and numerous medical journals are useful for finding health information on the go. Most of this content can be accessed on the web, so if the app is not free pull up Safari or Google Chrome.

The Sleep Education Blog recommends if the app is free, give it a test drive. Just don’t start surfing the web or texting from bed.

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Why iPhone and Droid Aren't Smart for the Bedroom

Smartphones more than ever are capturing the hearts of American consumers. Look at most tech blogs these days and you’ll find a vast number of articles are about Apple’s iPhone 4 or Google's latest Android phone. It’s not hard to see why. The modern “super phone” does it all; it’s a phone, a computer and an entertainment system rolled into a handheld device.

Just don’t bring these devices into the bedroom. Smartphones are smaller, but functionally similar to the supposedly insomnia-causing iPad.

Obviously that story reported by countless news outlets in April was a bit overblown. iPads, smartphones or computers with bright screens won’t cause insomnia outright, but they can be detrimental to your sleep.

If you’re familiar with the concepts of sleep hygiene you would know that bright screens can prevent you from feeling tired. The blue and green light emitted from the screen can alter the natural human circadian process by preventing the body from secreting melatonin. Sleep hygiene also advise against using your bedroom for activities other than sleep and sex.

Going against both of these recommendations by using your iPhone in bed is a recipe for disaster, right? Not necessarily. Some people can get away with using smartphones in bed without the slightest change in sleep. It’s kind of like how some people prefer to fall asleep with the television on.

The Sleep Education Blog of course doesn’t advocate either practice. We recommend turning off all electronic devices at least a half hour before bed, especially if you typically have a difficult time falling asleep. Try reading a book, listening to music or a podcast or doing light chores around your home instead.

Even your run-of-the-mill cell phone may interfere with sleep. Parents complain teens and young adults may stay up too late texting or talking to friends. Some studies have gone so far as to suggest the radio frequency field can alter your sleep architecture just by keeping your cell phone on the nightstand. Other studies have reported no such effects.

Because there are so many conflicting reports, we don’t know exactly what kind of other effects cell phones have on our sleeping patterns. So maybe it’s best just to be safe and leave cell phones and smartphones out of the bedroom.

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