If you are sleeping with your phone under your pillow or just out of reach on a night stand, you are like the 45% of cell phone owners who need to have their mobile devices close at hand. The reasons for this are numerous, falling asleep while waiting for a call or text, using as an alarm clock, fear of missing a text message, or waiting for someone to post on their social media profile page. Although many head off to bed with the best of intentions, the simple truth is that keeping your cell-phone turned and near you while you try to sleep can be hazardous to your health. Consider these harms of sleeping near your cell-phone.
1.Setting Your Room on Fire
Although you might not believe it at first, your little cell-phone has enough power to spark and cause a fire very easily. If you are sleeping with the mobile device under your pillow, a spark could easily ignite those dry materials and start a fire right under your nose. If this seems highly unlikely, one only need to do a search for the teen in Texas who replaced he Samsung S4 battery with a non-original battery, and the end result was it sparked and set her pillow on fire while she slept. Incompatible phone batteries can easily spark, and if the phone is near flammable materials, a fire could ignite quite easily while you are sound asleep.
2.Reduction in a Sound Sleep
One of the challenges of having a turned on mobile device near you while sleeping is the slightest sounds can interrupt your sleeping pattern. In order for you to feel refreshed and rejuvenated each day, you need to get eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. When the mobile device is on next to you at night, you get awoken each time you receive an email, a text message, a chat request, a phone call, or when the phone is updating or downloading security features. Additionally, your cell-phone is emitting what is called blue light at night. The blue light has been shown in studies to inhibit the bodies ability to produce melatonin, disrupting the circadian rhythms. These wavelengths emitted by your phone are similar to sunlight, so the body simply thinks during the evening that it is daytime instead. The best thing you can do is turn off mobile devices before bed to allow your body to wind down and get the appropriate amount of rest.
3.Small Traces of Radiation
The jury is still out on whether excessive contact with a cell-phone can lead to cancer, but it is already a proven fact that your cell-phone is emitting very small amounts of electromagnetic radiation while turned on. Although studies are inconclusive about the long-term health risks associated with the radiation, these are the same emitted from microwaves and X-ray machines at the hospitals. Even though the health risks are not 100% conclusive, the World Health Organization released a study that showed that cell-phones can be dangerous to children because their skulls are much thinner than that of an adult. Leaving the phone next to their head while they sleep at night is allowing those small trace amounts of radiation to easily access their skulls, although the possible risks are still uncertain. Better to be safe and turn off the device than to find out later in life that excessive radiation exposure caused health issues.
