E-reading is part and parcel of nearly everyone’s life these days. You e-read while commuting, you e-read before bedtime, you e-read with your children … but could it be that e-reading is a harmful habit? In fact, it turns out that e-reading before bedtime may actually affect your sleep patterns.

A print book will often lull you to sleep before you even know it, even if it’s a fairly exciting plot. However, the same cannot be said about e-books, which have been proven to keep us up at night. This is because the screens on your tablet or e-reader have been found to affect your melatonin production.

Melatonin is the hormone your body secretes. It is responsible for the circadian rhythms of your body and their regulation. Melatonin is what signals your body that it’s time to sleep. A study by researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the Lighting Research Center revealed that backlit e-readers suppress melatonin production by more than 1/5 (22%), which is why many people who have the habit of e-reading find it hard to go to sleep after a reading session.

The short-wave light emitted by tablets and other e-reading devices seems to disrupt our body’s natural sleep process by inhibiting melatonin’s function. Currently scientists are working with hardware specialists to discuss the relationship between circadian rhythms and electronic devices. The goal is to help technology designers learn from these studies and develop more sleep-friendly devices for reading aficionados.

With many people already suffering from sleep deprivation, tablets and other LCD screen devices are now being added to the already long list of reasons for such sleep disruption. Unfortunately, tablets and ereaders are not the only devices with LCD screens. Smartphones, TVs, and computer monitors also emit short-wave light and could be responsible for your inability to sleep.

For at least two hours before your bedtime, abstain from using any LCD screen device and see if your sleep improves.

As for e-book lovers, try switching to the tried and tested conventional print book reading for a change, and perhaps you will be able to get to sleep much more quickly.

While the study at the Lighting Research Center only involved 13 subjects, it does resonate with many people’s concerns that e-reading before bedtime stimulates their brains too much instead of helping put them in sleep mode. More studies will need to replicate these findings, but for the time being, experiment with no LCD-screen usage before bedtime to see if that will allow you to sleep like a baby!

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