Your Phone: Keep It Out of Arm's Reach- Blog 3
Hello friend,
Your phone is the biggest sleep disruptor in your bedroom, and I see this not to shame you but to invite you into a different relationship with it at night.
That little device carries everything; your work, your messages, your social connections, your news, your entertainment, your anxieties. When it is within arms reach of your bed, you're not just holding a phone. You're holding access to every reason your mind might wake up and start racing. A message pings. You think,"I should check that." An alert appears. Suddenly you are not sleeping. You are problem-solving at 2 AM.
Even without notifications, just knowing your phone is there changes something. When you wake in the middle of the night (which everyone does, especially during seasonal depression), your instinct becomes "reach for the phone." This isn't about willpower or discipline. It's about how your brain works when you're tired and vulnerable. If the phone is right there, temptation is right there.
There is also the blue light consideration. Even a quick glance at your phone at night tells your brain, "Stay awake. There's interesting, important stuff here." The light suppresses melatonin production. Your circadian rhythm, already struggling during dark seasons, gets further disrupted.
Here's what I encourage: establish a hard boundary. The phone leaves the bedroom at night. Not on the nightstand. Not plugged in next to the bed. Out of the room entirely, or at the very least on the other side of the room, so that reaching for it requires actual effort.
I know this feels hard, especially if you've told yourself your phone is your safety net, your alarm clock, your way to call for help if you need it. But, your bedroom phone needs replacing; A simple alarm clock. A phone in another room if there's a true emergency ( and there usually isn't, even when anxiety tells you there might be).
When your phone is truly inaccessible, something beautiful happens. Your middle of the night brain has no choice but to return to sleep instead of scrolling. Your worry has nowhere to go but eventually back to rest.
This is perhaps the single most protective thing you can do for your sleep.
This post might feel like a repeat of just a couple of weeks ago when I wrote about the way blue light affects your sleep. This post expands that truth as well as how attached we have become to our phone at night. Perhaps you might think on this and see if you can commit to setting your phone "off sight" to get some really good night's rest.
I am with you on the other side of your screen, Jeanine
