The first piece in a three-part series on sleep, this article in The New Yorker address modern-day problems such as sleep hygiene and blue-light emitting electronics.
When we spend time with a blue-light-emitting device, we are, in essence, postponing the signal to our brain that tells it that it’s time to go to sleep. (“What have we done with our dusk?” Charles Czeisler asks.) When “dusk” gets pushed progressively later because of these false light cues, we get a surge of energy rather than the intended melatonin release.
