It happened to everyone: in the evening or after lunch we decide to watch a movie or a TV series, we sit comfortable on the sofa … and after a few minutes we are deeply asleep! What happens in our brain that makes us fall asleep in front of the TV? When we are subjected to monotonous stimuli Or very predictable, our brain enters that state that we commonly call “boredom“, which facilitates the transition to the relaxation and the sleep. Then there are additional elements that facilitate sleep: the comfortable posturethe passivity, The sound in the background and the vision of not very engaging content: All elements that can often occur together while watching television, and that lead the brain to “detach the plug” and induce the production of melatonin.
Why we end up falling asleep in front of the TV
We must take into account the context in which we look at the television. We often find ourselves in front of the television because we are tiredmaybe at the end of the day or after lunch, moments in which we are looking for passive activities with which to rest. Being generally full of commitments during the day, relaxing in front of the TV is an activity that we do during the eveningwhen the lowering of natural light induces the production of the melatoninthe hormone that regulates the sleep-wake rhythm. In the evening, the Sleep homeostatic pressurethat is, that internal mechanism of the organism that allows, through the daytime accumulation of specific molecules such as adenosine, to balance the vigil hours with the hours of sleep. If at that moment we put us semi-sded, and add a comfortable pillow and a not very engaging content, we are giving a lot of information to the body that leads him to do so.
In practice, our brain receives mixed signals: on the one hand there is the Visual and auditory stimulation of TVwho should keep us awake, but on the other there are Stainly rhythms and body signs that indicate that it is time to sleep. When external stimulation is not strong enough to prevail, sleep has the better.
Of course, there are also elements that hinder our sleep: very often they are not strong enough to prevent us from falling asleep, but they are enough to make sleep qualitatively scarce. There light emitted by the screens temporarily inhibits the production of melatonin, and the stimuli that television submits us, although potentially boring, could lead to aexcessive activation and determine a difficulty in falling asleep. In fact, it is not to be forgotten, as a research published on Pediatricsthat the use of the media in the evening is associated with a significant increase in sleep problemsespecially in the little ones. We can therefore say that, if on the one hand many elements of watching TV contribute to falling unconscious in the arms of Morfeo, many others risk preventing us from resting well and, if it becomes a habit, ending up for hinder the sleeping process.
Television favors passivity and loss of attention
It is thought that the boredom It is linked to a low state of activation, in moments in which we are forced, for external causes, to be able to do anything interesting. This is partly true, but it will sound surprising to know that boredom is associated both at low and at high levels of activation. To well think about it, one of the consequences of feeling bored is precisely theirritation Which can achieve, like when we make a long tail in the mail, and the latter is a very high activation state.
As for television, there are essentially two ways to “live” television content, or in general the multimedia content: we can do it to look for something stimulantfun or exciting (a thriller, a romantic series, a documentary) or turn on the television (or the smartphone) and leave the first thing that allows us on the screen “turn off the brain“.
It is immediately clear that television is an object that pushes the passiveness more than what multimedia platforms do, even with the famous “algorithm“That filters the proposals. Television does not present us in front of the various Possibility of choice All together, but at most it allows us to scroll through the list of channels and see what they are transmitting at that moment, mechanics that induces much more passiveness In those who use it, compared to the platforms. It is going that television facilitates more random stimuli, which can therefore be not very interesting for those who look at them (less suitable at the moment or to the person), giving us one perception of control and voluntariness very low, which is strongly related to the propensity to boredom and at “bankruptcy of attention“(the scientific expression of” losing attention “).
