Here’s how your smartphone light messes with your body: Stop wrecking your sleep, by Kevin Loria.

There’s something incredibly powerful about the blue lights that the designers of our smartphone, tablet, and laptop screens have been able to create. The lights in these screens glow so bright that we can see them even during a sunny day. …

That’s why — hard as it might be to stop — looking at your phone at night is a terrible idea.

Our bodies naturally follow a cycle that helps us stay awake and alert during the day and helps us get essential rest at night. But when we look at these screens as we’re getting ready for sleep, our brains get confused.

That light has a similar effect to the sight of the morning sun, which causes the brain to stop producing melatonin, a hormone that gives your body ‘time to sleep’ cues.

By disrupting melatonin production, smartphone light can disrupt your sleep cycle like an artificially induced sort of jet lag. This makes it harder to fall and stay asleep – and potentially causes serious health problems along the way.