Did you realise watching the news and checking your phone is affecting your sleep?

Are you finding yourself feeling more anxious ? Has your quality of sleep gone down? There is one common habit that might be causing these unwanted feelings, however the good news is there are simple steps to help combat them.

I understand the overwhelming feeling to stay up to date and informed with the news at the moment. Watching the 24 hour news channel, your phone pinging with alerts and constant updates on social media posts, all make you feel like you are staying informed. But what does staying informed really mean? Do we need to be updated every 15 minutes ?

The news is making you stressed and anxious

It’s really hard to watch the news or see a negative post ,without it affecting us emotionally. The more we expose ourselves to the news, the more likely we are to feel stressed and anxious. We begin to feel that things are out of our control and we create a negative loop, by feeding our bodies need for order, by watching more news. It is no wonder that by bedtime, we can’t fall asleep with our brains whirling with information.

There is one recommendation which can have a dramatic impact on your quality of sleep and that is only watch the news once a day. To feel the benefit even more ,you could go a step further and not watch it at all !

What to do if the news is making you anxious and disturbing you sleep

Here are my top tips to reduce your consumption

• Watch the news only once per day 
• If you do watch the news make sure it is not 2 hour before you want to go to sleep
• Unsubscribed to news channels and updates on your phone
• Hide the remote or move it to another part of the house
• Turn off notifications on your social media, so you do not accidentally see a negative post

Feeling anxious can have a detrimental effect on your sleep quality and if you don’t sleep well you feel more anxious the next day.

So are you ready to reduce your news consumption and improve your sleep quality ?