My Computer is Keeping Me Up at Night!

Ever do this? Finally cleaned up the kitchen, kids in bed, just about to go yourself, but, hmmmmmmm, maybe I'll check my e-mail. Next thing, it's way past midnight and it'll be another night of 6 hours or less sleep. Yikes, how did that happen???

At first, I'm ok the next morning. But, maybe about 2:30 pm, while digesting lunch, you find your eyes getting heavy. you stay awake for a bit, but as you start thinking about that memo you need to write, you kinda doze off for a bit and look up to see this on your screen: jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj.

Well, I just took this as my own fault. But now I know of the hypnotic spell cast by that pleasing blue light of the screen.

Michelle Slatalla, last Thursday in the New York Times Style Section ("As Different As Night and Day," NY Times, Jan. 19, 2010) spilled the beans on my computer's spell over me. She quotes Dr. Nancy Collop, medical director of the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Center. “It emits a blue light, which is one of the most stimulating lights to the little receptors we all have in the back of our eyeballs, which send messages to the brain to say whether it’s day or night and whether we should be awake or go to sleep.”

So, even though I'm tired, the screen is stimulating my brain with its subliminal message: "It's really daytime, and you want to be awake. Just keep watching me. You don't need sleep!"

My rectangular master has duped me into spending the hours bathed in the enticing light it casts upon my face.

Now that you know this, beware! Don't look at the screen before bed or when you really have other things to do. Don't let your computer screen condition your brain to spend all your free time in its spell!