Is your smartphone disturbing your sleep?
Are you getting enough sleep? And why is this related to aches and pains? Well, an article recently published by Popular Science revealed that people who use their smartphones after 9pm are sleepier than other people the next day. And this was true even when compared with people who looked at other screens such as laptops.
The link between sleep disturbance and other health problems is complicated, but increasingly it's thought that sleep problems may in fact be the cause rather than the symptom in a wide variety of illnesses. These range from mood disturbances to life-threatening illnesses such as heart disease and cancers. However chronic pain conditions including low back ache and fibromyalgia are often associated with poor sleep. It has previously been thought that the pain causes poor sleep, or even that there is no relationship at all between these conditions and sleep quality, but increasingly sleep researchers are wondering if poor sleep is in fact one of the causes of these conditions.
The amount of sleep that works for you is unique to you. Some people get by on less than 6 hours per night, and some swear they need more than 8. The average though is between 7 and 8 hours. So if you're not getting the average amount of sleep then perhaps you need to? And if you think you're not average — remember, you probably are, by definition! That's what "average" means after all.
Perhaps you should consult this chart:
Should you get more sleep? Flowchart from popsci.com