E-Reading During Bedtime Can Leave You Sleepless

If you are planning to read an e-book before going to sleep, drop the idea. A team of U.S. researchers have found that using a light-emitting electronic device like e-books just before going to bed can have adverse effects on one's sleep, overall heath, alertness and the circadian clock.

The study was conducted by a team of researchers at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) that conducted the study compared the biological effects of reading a light-emitting electronic device to a printed paper book.

As part of the study, the researchers corralled a dozen healthy young adults into a private room at Boston's BWH for two weeks. Half of them were asked to read from paper books, while the other half were asked to read from e-books on an iPad. Then the groups were asked to swap places.

The results, which were published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that those participants reading from e-books took more than 10 minute sto fall asleep at night.

"We found the body's natural circadian rhythms were interrupted by the short-wavelength enriched light, otherwise known as blue light, from these electronic devices," said Anne-Marie Chang, corresponding author and associate neuroscientist in BWH's Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, The Press Trust of India reports. 

Chang further said, "Participants reading an LE-eBook took longer to fall asleep and had reduced evening sleepiness, reduced melatonin secretion, later timing of their circadian clock and reduced next-morning alertness than when reading a printed book."   

In fact, even after sleeping for proper eight hours, the e-book readers woke up feeling sleepier in the morning. The report adds, "Furthermore, not only did they awaken feeling sleepier, it took them hours longer to fully 'wake up' and attain the same level of alertness than in the printed book condition," NPR reports.   

Charles Czeisler, the study's senior author and chief of the hospital's division of sleep and circadian disorders, said that blue light shining directly into one's eyes "is exactly what you don't want to do at bedtime." He further said that people think that reading will help them fall asleep, but they don't realize that the mode of reading also plays a crucial role in helping them sleep. The e-reading technology is not healthy and is ending up harming readers.