What is Junk Sleep?

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that one bad night of sleep can impact how we function – our mood, our brain cognition, our reactiveness and alertness, right down to our appearance.

The UK Sleep Council explains ‘Junk Sleep’ as the poor quality sleep we are getting as a result of our dependence on digital tech and the impact that this has on our sleep and our health.

The overuse of digital technology is linked with stress levels, anxiety and with depression. It also wrecks havoc on our sleep – or lack of - which has a knock on effect on our body systems – including our hormone production, immunity and metabolic function. Sleep builds resilience and a quality sleep arms us with the ability to tackle challenges head on - to be ahead of the 8 ball - instead of operating from a constant reactive state as tasks, work and life, get thrown our way over the course of the day.

Natural light from the sun powerfully influences our sleep cycle and with our high use of digital tech at all hours of the day and night, this cycle gets manipulated by blue screen light emission. This impacts melatonin production – the sleep hormone. Our circadian rhythm – our own internal 24 hour wake/sleep cycle run by the circadian pacemaker in our brain - is impacted by over exposure to this blue light and our sleep cycle can get thrown out. And we all know what a hot mess this makes us - tossing and turning at night not to mention the next day running on low battery.

So as challenging as it can be to move away from our use of digital tech – it is here to stay – if you don't already - think about minimalising screen time where you can – especially before bed.

Post from Sascha Jones Master the Basics Series - For Health + For Life. Live in Flow, Uplevel + Thrive