Morning Screen Time: How Your Phone Alters Your Wake-Up Routine 📱

What is the problem with using your phone first thing in the morning? 

It’s so much easier to wake up when you use your phone, getting that little push.

But what does it really do to your brain?

From Sleep to Wakefulness

Let me walk you through the process of waking up. 

You hear the sound of the alarm. How does that work? 

There’s a feature in the brain that acts like a light switch, responsible for the filtering of important information from your surroundings, like noises or movements called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). This is what sends signals to wake you up.

Now that you have woken up, your brain will transition through different stages. 

Your brain is in a state of low activity. Your neurotransmitter levels will have changed.

The decrease in levels of sleep-promoting neurotransmitters like serotonin and increase in levels of wake-promoting neurotransmitters like dopamine.

What Does Cortisol Have To Do With It?

During the process of waking up, there may be some grogginess or disorientation as your brain adjusts to the waking state. Now at this point, doesn’t it make sense to use your phone to remove that sleepiness? Wrong. 

Side Note: You know how some days you feel more groggy? This is because the brain changes in stages between deep to light sleep. If you wake up during deep sleep, it will take longer for all the other parts of your brain to wake up.

To change that, try using sleep calculators online to make sure that you wake up during a light sleep.

Our body has its own natural alarm clock– the cortisol. It is the hormone that regulates your sleep-wake cycle. Your cortisol levels naturally rise in the morning, which provides you with energy and alertness. But you decided to grab your phone; check your messages, watch a couple videos, and scroll through your socials. This then affects the process of fully waking up.

How? Blue light from your phone screens. This light confounds the body's internal clock, which throws off the circadian rhythm. This disruption affects the rise in cortisol levels, making it harder to wake up smoothly in the morning.

What Else Can It Do? What Can I Do?

It incites stress. Excessive use of smartphones, particularly for social media consumption, is associated with higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Imagine, you open your phone, without knowing what you will do for the day ahead, and all you see is whatever is going wrong or ‘right’ in the world. 

Then you get stuck. You start scrolling your morning away until you realize that it’s time to move. Your focus is now divided and your concentration is disrupted. 

We have all been there. How do we change that?

Take this as a challenge:

And, before you let your fingers do the morning stretch by swiping through your phone, remember: a real wake-up call doesn’t come with a screen.

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