Youngsters addicted to 'sleep texting'

Stressful lives and an addiction to smartphones can lead to the phenomenon of sleep texting. Case study: A young woman working in a private company gets up in the middle of the night to her vibrating smartphone. Sleepy, she notices a message and texts back. The next morning, she has no memory of sending the text. The above phenomenon is now being referred to as 'sleep texting'. Psychologist Seema Hingoranny says, "People with stressful lives are so much into sending (work-related or otherwise) messages to people the entire day that they keep doing it during the night, without even realising that they are." This, however, is not a common trend yet, but city experts agree that it is happening. Former president of the Bombay Psychiatric Society, Kersi Chavda, states, "People do get up in the middle of the night to text, check their phone for emails or updates on social networking and micro-blogging sites, but it is not that they are unaware of it, like in sleep walking." Experts agree that since smartphones are addictive for some, sleep texting is becoming common. People are not ready to ignore their smartphones - they check their phones even in the middle of intimate moments with their partners, say Chavda. "But unless it is compulsive and you are completely unaware the next morning of texting from your phone at night, this is not a serious problem." In an earlier report, sleep specialist Dr David Cunnington said that he was so worried about the disorder that he warned those experiencing the condition to leave their mobile phones out of their bedrooms. He was quoted as saying, "People are doing so much during a normal day that it can mean they feel like they're on call even at night. Because it's so easy to communicate with smartphones, it becomes more difficult to separate waking and sleeping lives." Seema adds, "The symptoms of sleep texters include stress, low attention and memory spans, and low concentration. And if there are instances of something like this happening, one must start taking precautions." Save yourselves - Avoid keeping your handset in your bedroom. - Accept that your body and mind need six-eight hours of sleep. - Try to 'switch off' from work once you are at home. - Do not keep your phone on the vibrate mode because that is very distracting and will invariably wake you up.