It's been a decade since Dr. Greene, a sleep specialist based in the UK, has been leaving his cell phone in his basement before turning in for the night. A high flying doctor with his cell phone buzzing practically all day, the last thing he wants is a disturbed sleep cycle because of a vibrating gizmo, he says. And Dr. Greene is no exception.

Neurologists and insomnia specialists around the world have been harping on the ill effects of mobiles, especially if they sit by your bedside table.

Talk to any researcher of sleep habits and they will explain to you. What mobile phones do is fool our systems into thinking that it's still day. The light from a cell phone or a tablet has a great amount of the colour blue in it - which means they have a greater effect at exciting the cells in our retina - which are the messengers that tell the brain to wake up and stay alert. This is why reading or staring at a screen from up close is highly inadvisable if you're trying to sleep....a book, on the other hand, is a much better option.

Apart from the type of light, what also plays a part, is the amount of brightness, the proximity to your body, the duration, as well as what time it is in the day - which is why if you're reading off a phone, holding it close to your face, at an unearthly time of the night - you are driving away sleep by miles.

Studies have also proven that even a millisecond alert from your phone while you are asleep can wake you up and keep you awake for considerably long - as the brain gets active and takes its time to slow down.

As humans, we sleep in patterns of about two hours with mild breaks in between. At the time of these breaks, if a message or a call disturbs us, we become completely awake. Even if we take a cursory look at our phones then, we stop sleeping totally.

Furthermore, there is of course the effect of the radio waves emanating from your phones while you are asleep. Although the exact percentage of effect is still a matter under scrutiny, enough research has been done to prove that mobile phone radiation does have an effect on one's brain if kept in the bedroom at night.

So now you have enough reasons and more to keep that cell phone far away from you for a good, healthy night of sleep.

Image source - wikipedia