How Modernity And Technology Are Harming Your Sleep Cycle
By: Christyl Rivers
Tags: Science, Nature, Sleep, Health, Biology

How Modernity And Technology Are Harming Your Sleep Cycle

And what to do about it

Too much family stress can harm your sleep cycle. Photo by Christyl Rivers

Let’s be non-groggy and clear. Technology is good. No one need bash technology. Still, our addiction and ever-increasing reliance upon it is changing who we are. Here are just a few examples. Lights on twenty-four hours a day, all over the world, sap both human and resource energy. In other words, they cost not only light pollution, and use of fossil fuels, but they cause sleep deprivation, too.

Better to dream that you are driving than drive while you are dreaming.

This has as much to do with our social programming and drive to compete as it does with our we evolutionary origins. We need sleep, but we pretend we are somehow better if we deprive ourselves of it. We are more prone to illness and accidents when sleep deprived. Better to dream that you are driving than drive while you are dreaming.

More and more, we rely upon the sparkly, neurotransmitter zap that is released in the brain each time we sense someone wants to connect to us. Where, as once we needed that from actual, present human beings to whom we trusted our lives and our community, we now get just enough nudge from a like or an emoji to keep us hungry for more. We don’t turn off our devices and tablets at night because we could miss a critical connection to belonging.

The thin, blue light between us and societal unraveling has an off button

Blue light is the one in the perception spectrum that most devices run on. Turn it off at night, if you can. And if you cannot? Deeply investigate your own motives for requiring constant influx of data and sensory feeding which usually turns out to be mush for the mind. Your mind is creating and storing important memory and meaning while you sleep. Your body, too, is in mending mode. The glare of a blue light, on the other hand (or on its other stand) is like a looming and snarly cop accusing you of robbing you of your own popularity.

Let’s examine guilt. We all consume the earth. It is a necessity of living. However, modern and moderately wealthy nations — and especially filthy rich ones — are consuming more of it. Poverty, child mortality, pandemics and pollution result. Loss of habitat happens as what we once called progress is made. We can shrug and say we feel no guilt. We can even lie and say “there is no guilt, our consumption just shows how hard-working we are.” That has been well researched and proven to be untrue. Sharing, caring, gratitude and most of all, connecting to the less fortunate brings more meaning, happiness and belonging than status, wealth or the need to dominate.

Bill and Melinda Gates are not just in Africa because they are smart or wealthy people. They are there because our planetary mission is to connect and belong, recognizing that all humans wake up on the same planet, breathe the same air, and need the same clean water and food.

Labor Day celebrates that workers decided a weekend is good. Don’t feel guilty about taking a brain break.

The western work ethic erroneously equates sleeping as non-productive. It’s not. In fact, the worthless worry about productivity carries high external costs for all organisms. Light pollution, for example, diminishes natural habitats and erases the soothing comfort of moon and stars.

How do we conquer guilt? This one is easy. You don’t conquer guilt, you own it, express it, use it and empower with it. Every single decision you make makes a difference, to paraphrase Jane Goodall: “Just decide what difference to you want to make.” If you feel your addictive, online fun time is not fulfilling your mission on earth, add some non-electronic connection. Advocate for wildlife. Defeat poverty. Spend time with elders. Play in the woods to both improve your sleep cycle, but also spend less blue light time making yourself blue. Educate yourself about how light, like food or any other resource is wasted, hurts wildlife, destroys , and is influenced by your choices.

Find what strength and self-reliance you have without the aid of technology. Yeah. No. There is no real App for that just yet. Imagine yourself plopped into the real world with no machines. What do you eat? Where do you sleep? How does a wild animal know so much more about finding safety than we do? It’s because we have en-fragilated ourselves with too much tech at times. The wisdom of the woods seldom crashes unless we crush it.

Appreciation of our shared sleep evolution with every other organism on Earth also helps. When we see the strength of a self-regenerating lion, or the energy of a hovering hummingbird who sleeps unencumbered by an alarm, we share and appreciate where restorative energy comes from. We belong. We also need sleep to make sense of the clattering, noisy world. We won’t end over-consumption by shopping day and night. Ignoring that social, relationship, employment and family stress reduction requires better sleep habits is hazardous.

Snuggle and snooze

Quality time canoodling and snoozing leads to more intimacy and healthy sexual habits too, which is nature’s best sedative, BTW.

If you feel defensive about your device, there is likely a problem there. Sleep on it, to ponder what meaning and connection you may be giving up to be in constant contact with the utter chaos — largely created by lack of sleep — that unfolds all around us.