Sunday, January 20, 2008

Mobile Phone radiation reduces sleep effectiveness

A new study by the cell phone manufacturer suggests that exposure to cellular radiation at night may reduce the quality of sleep, and prevent the brain from reaching the lower levels of sleep needed to fully recover from a day's stress.

Radiation from mobile phones delays and reduces sleep, and causes headaches and confusion, according to a new study.

The research, sponsored by the mobile phone companies themselves, shows that using the handsets before bed causes people to take longer to reach the deeper stages of sleep and to spend less time in them, interfering with the body's ability to repair damage suffered during the day.

The findings are especially alarming for children and teenagers, most of whom – surveys suggest – use their phones late at night and who especially need sleep. Their failure to get enough can lead to mood and personality changes, ADHD-like symptoms, depression, lack of concentration and poor academic performance.
I first heard about this study a few weeks ago, and decided to try an experiment for myself. Since I had gotten my iPhone, I had been sleeping with it on my alarm clock, near the head of my bed. I moved the phone across the room or sometimes to another room entirely during evening hours. Since then, I have indeed found my sleep to be considerably improved in quality, and I am waking up less often at night. Of course, my results are only anecdotal and may well be psychosomatic in nature. But I'd encourage our other Mod-Blog readers to do the same and see if they have the same results.

3 comments:

Sam said...

I emailed the link to this to my 20-something sister who sleeps with her cell phone and my teenager sister who seems to never be far from her sell phone. Maybe they will stop by and comment.

We lost our cell phones a few years back after I hid it from the kids and completely forgot that I had hidden it. I don't have to worry about cell phones doing funny things to my brain any more.

quizwedge said...

Is the idea to not sleep with it by your head or to have it no near you before you go to bed. If it's the latter one, for how long before you go to bed?

Nomad said...

Wedge, The study is not specific on exact methods to avoid the effects. However, generally the problem appears to be when the brain is bathed in radiation. So placing the phone in a charger across the room is probably sufficient. That is my plan.