SLEEP HYGIENE TIP OF THE WEEK: Are you *still* checking your phone at bedtime?

Back in December, you may have decided you would take control over your smartphone habits and practice turning your phone off before bedtime.

Have you?

Are you still checking your phone at bedtime? And what are you checking? Your email? Your social networks? Your Twitter account?

Are you playing a game on your phone? That's part of the "checking your phone" habit. So is reading a book, looking at the week's weather, updating your calendar, catching up on your blog feed, adding notes to your grocery list, looking at pictures, sharing from Pinterest or Instagram, shopping online, writing in a phone diary app, recording your meal data for dietary purposes or texting.

Oh, and making phone calls. Especially if you use the speaker feature and stare at the screen rather than hold the phone to your ear or put it aside.

Check out Sleep Judge's  article, "The Many Different Ways Technology Affects Sleep," to clarify matters. They share some other sneaky ways that our nighttime love affair with tech can hold our sleep health hostage, including some you may have never thought about.

All of your phone tasks need to be done an hour before bedtime. If you use your phone right up to the moment you go to bed, you risk altering your brain chemistry to halt melatonin production, which is necessary for sleep to take place. And you also risk stimulating your brain precisely when it needs to relax and shut down for the night.

We at SHC understand the need to keep a phone on the nightstand for emergencies or to use as an alarm. However, pre-setting your Do Not Disturb feature and alarms before bedtime makes it easy to just plug your phone into its charger, TURN IT FACE DOWN, and leave it for the night.

No need to check it!

Even if you did not resolve to set aside your smartphone at bedtime, do yourself a solid... put it away before you go to bed. Here are some legit reasons why:

• BBC News: Phones need 'bed mode' to protect sleep
• DailyMail: Facebook at bedtime 'is damaging teens' grades': Pupils who use site within 30 minutes of going to sleep can see results fall by 20%
• DailyMail: Why you should NEVER keep your mobile in your bedroom
• Digital Trends: Is blue light keeping you up at night? We ask the experts
• Emotional Fitness/Ohio State University: Cell Phone use before bedtime might impact sleep, and daytime tiredness
• HUFFPOST Healthy Living: 7 Reasons To Banish Your Phone From The Bedroom
• Jacksonville Sleep Center: Turn On Quality Sleep by Turning Off Technology
• Shine365: Can't sleep? Blame your cellphone
• Social Science Medicine: Bedtime mobile phone use and sleep in adults

Sleep and Technology: Ways to quiet your smartphone for sweet, uninterrupted sleep

"Byemobile" image courtesy GoPixPic.com

One of the common challenges that sleep technologists have while working with patients in the lab setting is the requirement that all technology be turned off at bedtime. No television, no tablet, no game device, no cell phone, no radio.

"How am I supposed to sleep?" is often the outcry when the television or radio is removed from the laboratory setting. They want to read their tablet or play that last round of digital Solitaire, which is actually going to keep them awake at night, thanks to the blue-light emissions.

On the one hand, it's a great opportunity for the sleep technologist to educate their patients on bedtime habits that can challenge a good night's sleep.

What is far more challenging, however, is to get patients to understand that having a cell phone that is turned on all night may be one of the biggest problems that person faces when trying to achieve quality sleep.

The argument for leaving the phone ring and vibrate tones on is often that the particular individual is "on call" for their job and can't turn it off. Or they have small children at home who may miss them, or a teenager at home by themselves, or a loved one in the hospital with a critical condition, and they need to be able to take incoming calls in order to be in touch at a moment's notice.

Fair enough. Life happens.

But you can do something about this. Most smartphones these days have features that allow you to create a "Do Not Disturb" distinction of some sort, which will silence and send all incoming calls to the voicemail except for those which you give a special exception. You really CAN turn your phone off to everyone at bedtime except for that teenager who is going to be out late and needs to phone in if they are going to be out even later. You can also specify for individual incoming calls or texts.

Also, a word about notifications. Some patients who don't turn their phones off will receive chimes all night long from text messages, often not from people directly (though this happens, too) but via social networks like Facebook and Linked In, where notifications have been enabled. This can be extremely intrusive to one's sleep patterns if the text chime is constantly going off.

You can silence these notifications through your smartphone settings as well so that your phone basically "holds your calls" until you are awake again and can page through your notifications during the light of day.

This is really helpful for people who have social connections crossing many time zones, as their contacts may be posting at what is a normal time for them without realizing that the notification for their message is actually pinging their followers much later in the evening or extremely early in the morning.

Give it a try! I know my sleep is much better now that I am in charge of my cell phone activity. You can easily do this for yourself and, trust me, you'll be glad you did.

Priority settings for Android || c|net.com
Do not disturb settings for iPhone || Houston Chronicle
Blocking mode for Samsung Galaxy || GottaBeMobile

If for some reason these options don't work for you, or you would prefer a "do not disturb" feature as an app, you can also check your cell phone app store for free options to help give you control over your incoming calls and texts.