Are you having a more difficult time sleeping at night? While you can always blame it on stress or even age, it is also possible that the culprit is that nifty device called an e-book reader.
Although many still prefer to read in paperback or even hardbound, there is a growing number who prefer e-books. Based on a study conducted by Pew Internet Research, about 28% of those who read at least one book in 2013 did so using an e-book reader.
Nevertheless, a team of researchers suggested that you may want to keep your e-book reader somewhere other than your bedroom when you are about to go to sleep.
Harvard Medical School researchers wanted to determine the effect of reading an e-book reader at night then compare such health impact to reading a regular book, or a paperback.
For the research, they invited twelve volunteers who spent about 2 weeks in a sleep lab. In the first five days, they read books in paperback. In the next 5 days, they shifted to reading using an iPad. All throughout this experiment, researchers draw blood to quantify melatonin, which is the body's hormone that induces sleep. They discovered that when they read through the iPad, their production of melatonin declined. They also struggled in the morning since they usually woke up feeling tired.
What is with an e-book reader that seems to make it more harmful than a paperback? The answer lies on its light. The body has its own internal clock, which is guided by light. Light keeps your body alert while the absence of it tends to relax it.
E-book readers have built-in lights that can interfere the way your brain perceives night and day. In other words, they disturb your sleeping pattern and slow down the melatonin production, making it harder for you to sleep.