The Tech-extended Day Times Disrupts Sleep Patterns Leading to Increasing Danger of Cancer

There's growing concern among experts that the proliferation of glowing gadgets like computers may fool your brain into thinking that it's still daytime after the sun has gone down. Exposure during the night can disturb sleep patterns and exacerbate insomnia.

Such concerns are not new -- Thomas Edison may have created these problems when he invented the light bulb. But the problem has grown worse thanks to the popularity of Apple's new slate computer, the iPad.

Many consumers use an iPad to read at night, and paper books or e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle, which does not emit its own light, the iPad's screen shines light directly into your eyes from a relatively close distance.

According to CNN:

"That makes the iPad and laptops more likely to disrupt sleep patterns than, say, a television sitting across the bedroom or a lamp that illuminates a paper book, both of which shoot far less light straight into the eye, researchers said."

 

Everything in nature has a rhythm, and that includes your body. The ebb and flow of the ocean's tide, the rising and setting of the sun, and the transition from one season to another all happen with comforting regularity. Your body, too, strives to keep its 24-hour cycle, or circadian rhythm, steady and even.

This is why most of us naturally feel like waking when the sun comes up, and sleeping when it's dark.

Researchers have also shown how your circadian rhythm is involved in everything from sleep, to weight gain, mood disorders, and a variety of diseases.

Unfortunately, modern life throws multiple wrenches into the works, as it were, mainly by artificially extending 'daytime.'