If you are sleeping with your phone under your pillow or just out of reach on a night stand, you are like the 45% of cell phone owners who need to have their mobile devices close at hand. The reasons for this are numerous, falling asleep while waiting for a call or text, using as an alarm clock, fear of missing a text message, or waiting for someone to post on their social media profile page. Although many head off to bed with the best of intentions, the simple truth is that keeping your cell-phone turned in and near you while you try to sleep can be hazardous to your health. Consider these harms of sleeping near your cell-phone.
–Setting Your Room on Fire
Although you might not believe it at first, your little cell-phone has enough power to spark and cause a fire very easily. If you are sleeping with the mobile device under your pillow, a spark could easily ignite those dry materials and start a fire right under your nose. If this seems highly unlikely, one only need to do a search for the teen in Texas who replaced her Samsung S4 battery with a non-original battery, and the end result was it sparked and set her pillow on fire while she slept. Incompatible phone batteries can easily spark, and if the phone is near flammable materials, a fire could ignite quite easily while you are sound asleep.
–Reduction in a Sound Sleep
One of the challenges of having a turned on mobile device near you while sleeping is the slightest sounds can interrupt your sleeping pattern. In order for you to feel refreshed and rejuvenated each day, you need to get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. When the mobile device is on next to you at night, you get awoken each time you receive an email, a text message, a chat request, a phone call, or when the phone is updating or downloading security features. Additionally, your cell-phone is emitting what is called blue light at night. The blue light has been shown in studies to inhibit the bodies ability to produce melatonin, disrupting the circadian rhythms. These wavelengths emitted by your phone are similar to sunlight, so the body simply thinks during the evening that it is daytime instead which cause serious migraines and may even result in memory loss. The best thing you can do is turn off mobile devices before bed to allow your body to wind down and get the appropriate amount of rest.
–Small Traces of Radiation
The jury is still out on whether excessive contact with a cell-phone can lead to cancer, but it is already a proven fact that your cell-phone is emitting very small amounts of electromagnetic radiation while turned on. Although studies are inconclusive about the long-term health risks associated with the radiation, these are the same emitted from microwaves and X-ray machines at the hospitals. Even though the health risks are not 100% conclusive, the World Health Organization released a study that showed that cell-phones can be dangerous to children because their skulls are much thinner than that of an adult. Leaving the phone next to their head while they sleep at night is allowing those small trace amounts of radiation to easily access their skulls, although the possible risks are still uncertain. Better to be safe and turn off the device than to find out later in life that excessive radiation exposure caused health issues.
There are two ways: first, turn it off and leave it in the usual place (on the nightstand), keeping in mind that you must use a different alarm clock. The second is to leave it on but place it in a distant room, such as the kitchen or living room. This alternative is less desirable. And if you do not feel comfortable turning off the phone in case someone needs to communicate with you during the night in an emergency, you can at least turn off the Internet or WiFi connection, which is more dangerous than the radio waves.
Experts recommend that the cell phone should be at least three feet away from the body during sleep. You can leave it, for example, on the couch or on a chair.
A word is enough for the wise.
