Ree Ree Ree!!! The alarm clock screams in your ear, giving you a mini heart attack as you fumble through the covers at a hurried pace to turn off that god awful piece of technology. You find yourself staring at the ceiling dreading the day full of responsibilities that is to come. For a moment you seriously consider giving up your career to become a professional panhandler so you can sleep in every day. But alas, you mosey out of bed and get your day started. Hit the fast forward button to finding yourself at work, struggling to do your normal tasks as your weary eyes battle to stay open. Soon you begin to look like the people in the pepsi commercial doing the head bob, catching yourself falling asleep while working on your computer.  Skipping forward, this time to the end of your long work day filled with twenty million cups of coffee and a quick burger run for lunch. Now all you want to do is curl up with a loved one, watch your favorite show, and fall asleep. Only, when it’s finally time to get cozied up in between the sheets, you find yourself in the same position as you did that morning, staring up at the ceiling. Your mind thinks it’s running a marathon and you wonder where all this energy was during your work day. Unable to calm your mind, you pull out your favorite time waster, and scroll through Facebook looking for funny posts to entertain you until the sandman comes. Hold the phone; what if it doesn’t have to be this way? Well, the good news is that it doesn’t. By learning more about sleep itself, you can apply a few tips and tricks necessary to get a great night's sleep.

What does your perfect night look like? For most people it’s something simple like cuddling with their pet or loved one, favorite grub in hand, and making it through as many episodes of The Office as possible until it’s time to catch some z’s. However little do we know, our favorite pastimes nowadays are actually the things that are wrecking our health. Great health begins with great sleep, and sleep is governed by our melatonin production. WebMD describes melatonin as such: “Melatonin is a hormone made by a small gland in the brain called the pineal gland. Very small amounts of melatonin can be found in food, and its levels can be affected by how much light we get each day. Our circadian rhythm, or our internal body clock, is affected by light and is also responsible for how much melatonin our bodies produce.” Have you ever noticed that during the winter you feel more tired and maybe even a little depressed? This is due to the fact that we’re exposed to less sunlight in the winter months which can lead to seasonal affective disorder. One simple way to combat our sloth like demeanor in the winter is by purchasing a light therapy box, which studies have shown positive effects when used in battlement of SAD. (Iyer, Burroughs, Anand, Souza, & Aravind, 2017) Although more research needs to be done to prove it’s effectiveness, supplementing with higher levels of vitamin D may help brighten your winter days as well.

What does all of this have to do with technology wrecking our health? It comes down to the type of light we’re exposed to each day. Studies have shown that when a person is exposed to blue light specifically at night, their cortisol levels are increased, disrupting their melatonin production. This means that our favorite gadgets and daily habits are interfering with our sleep. Sleep is imperative in order to live a productive and enjoyable life. However, technology is the way of the future in regards to our careers as well as our entertainment. So how can we check ourselves before we wreck ourselves? Spending less time on our devices during the nighttime hours is an obvious solution, but who really wants to do that? One simple way to help conquer the surge of cortisol is to make use of the night shift function if you have an Apple device. For you Android users, here’s a link explaining how to do it on your overly complicated phones. For your laptops there is an app called f.lux that syncs with your location to change the color of your screen based on the time of day. My third tip for starving off those sneaky sleep suckers is to use blue light blocking glasses. I recently just purchased a pair of these glasses and I have already noticed that I am able to fall asleep faster than before. Better nights mean better days, so respect your body and use these tips to give it the proper rest it needs; “future you” will thank “current you” for doing so.

By Aaron Graves

• Melatonin - Overview. (n.d.). Retrieved August 16, 2017, from http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/tc/melatonin-overview#1
• Cheung, I. N., Zee, P. C., Shalman, D., Malkani, R. G., Kang, J., & Reid, K. J. (n.d.). Morning and Evening Blue-Enriched Light Exposure Alters Metabolic Function in Normal Weight Adults. Retrieved August 16, 2017, from
• http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0155601Figueiro, M. G., & Rea, M. S. (2010). The Effects of Red and Blue Lights on Circadian Variations in Cortisol, Alpha Amylase, and Melatonin. Retrieved August 16, 2017, from
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2905913/Iyer, L. M., Burroughs, A. M., Anand, S., Souza, R. F., & Aravind, L. (2017). Polyvalent Proteins, a Pervasive Theme in the Intergenomic Biological Conflicts of Bacteriophages and Conjugative Elements. Journal of Bacteriology, 199(15). doi:10.1128/jb.00245-17