Screens Destroy Your Sleep: Lock Your Phone Away

Not using your phone at night is one of the fastest ways to improve your sleep quality.

And the best way to do this is to lock your phone in a box.

I’ve been trying to optimize my sleep for over 5 years now.

I’ve tried everything. I’ve fell in and out of bad habits and good habits, and gradually improved over time.

When I don’t use my phone in the evening (past ~7-8pm), I have much better sleep quality, and higher energy the next morning.

Even a single day is noticeable, and it’s even stronger if I do it for multiple days in a row.

To do this, I lock my phone away in the early evening, in a plastic container with a timer lock. So I have no chance of using it until the next morning.

This is my keystone habit that naturally improves everything else in my life.

Doomscrolling: One of The Worst Bad Habits

I have (or had) a bad habit of doomscrolling in bed, which I’m sure you can relate to.

I’m talking about:

  • Scrolling social media (Twitter, Reddit, etc.)
  • Watching hour-long YouTube videos about irrelevant topics
  • “Relaxing” by watching porn

This wasted hours and hours of time. At one point, I wasted 1-2 hours per day.

However, I went to sleep later, woke up groggy, started the next day already behind, with less time and energy to do the work and habits that actually matter.

This was such a giant bad habit, and was the most difficult to stop.

For reference, I use screens a lot. I easily spend 10 hours per day on my computer and phone combined. My work is on my computer, and so is most of my personal life. So I’m not giving up screens as a whole whatsoever.

It’s just using phone screens at night which is so damaging.

Recap: Why Screens Are So Bad at Night

Screens are terrible for sleep, primarily because of the artificial blue light stimulating your brain and body.

There is a double hit of fewer sleep hours, and lower sleep quality:

  • Blue light makes you feel less sleepy than you should, so you naturally delay going to sleep, and get less sleep.
  • Blue light also decreases your sleep quality, so time spent asleep gives you less restorative recovery and makes you feel less rested.
  • Also, social media stimulates your mind and emotions, making you mentally feel less sleepy and decreasing sleep quality.

The result: You wake up groggy and tired, even after “enough” hours of sleep.

You can sleep for 8 hours, but it’s basically like you only had 6 “real” sleep hours.

It’s deceiving and frustrating, because you’ll be confused why you’re still tired. You might falsely conclude that:

  • You need even to sleep even more hours, or,
  • You’re just the kind of person doomed to be tired all the time

The goal of good evening routine habits is to make yourself feel sleepy and naturally want to go to bed.

In contrast, forcing yourself to go to sleep when you’re not tired doesn’t work. Telling yourself to “just go to sleep on time” doesn’t work.

Practical Steps for No Screens

This is my personal routine:

  • Avoid all phone use, using a phone lock box.
  • Use my computer with dark mode and Flux.

Ideally, you should stop using all technology with screens at least about 90 minutes before bedtime. So, if you go to sleep at 10pm, you should stop by 8:30.

But you probably have heard that before. It’s easy to say, but hard to actually do.

The temptation is simply too difficult to avoid with willpower alone.

Lock Your Phone Away (My Keystone Habit)

I lock my phone at 7pm in a hard plastic safe with a timer lock, overnight until the next morning (typically until 9am).

After it’s locked, it’s impossible for me to use my phone (unless I literally smash the box).

You may think this is extreme or counter-intuitive. After all, if you don’t want to use your phone, you can just choose not to (“just don’t use it lol”).

However, your mind often doesn’t act in your own best long-term interests.

You create a plan that looks great on paper. But you inevitably fall off.

Because it’s easy to create a plan when you’re in a rational, well-rested, and unstressed state of mind. It’s much more difficult to execute that plan when you’re tired, stressed, and impulsive.

Locking your phone in a box is a commitment device that forces yourself into a course of action, eliminating the need to avoid temptation later.

You make a decision early in the evening (in an environment of low temptation), in order to avoid temptation later.

More and more, I’ve found that Willpower is For Losers (which is where I got this idea originally).

Just search on Amazon for “phone lock box” and you’ll see options from $20-30. The one I bought is called the kSafe, but it seems they do not sell them anymore.

I put my phone in the box as the first task in my evening routine, and I also remind myself using a Windows alarm at 7pm, since I’m on my computer all the time.

This plan is still not perfect.

  • I still don’t follow through every single night.
  • I still haven’t figured out how to deal with coming home late and tired, from a hangout with friends or a date.

But it’s much higher than without this technique.

You Don’t Need Your Phone in the Evening

The truth is: Your phone is not necessary in the evening for any reason.

But think to yourself: When do I actually need my phone at night?

Everything can wait until tomorrow.

You don’t have to trust me. You can test it for yourself, and figure out what you need to adjust. For example, for me, I had to:

Computer: Use a Blue Light Filter and Dark Mode

I’ve found that computer use is not that big deal for sleep, because if you lock your phone away, you will naturally feel sleepy and not stay up that late.

However, you should still do some basic things:

  • Use a blue light filter, like f.lux, Night Shift (Windows). I personally use f.lux. This automatically makes your screen more orange closer to bedtime.
  • Use dark mode whenever possible. For Chrome/Brave, you can use Dark Reader.

You can also wear blue light blocking glasses, which are orange-tinted glasses that reduce blue light going into your eyes, and you can buy on AliExpress for $10-25.

Maybe eliminating all screens completely is optimal. But so much of modern life is made more efficient using my computer, whether it’s work, personal life, communication, reading, writing, and so many other things. I’ve found this compromise works well.

Go Forth and Sleep

Try it for 3 nights. Lock your phone away after 7pm and see how you feel.

The results will convince you more than anything I could write.