Calling All Sleepyheads

Have you seen the latest viral video making the rounds on the internet? It’s a video of four friends sitting around a table, four un-popped popcorn kernels sitting at the center. When three of the friends place their cell phones around the un-popped kernels, the radiation the phones give off when the phones start ringing actually causes the kernels to pop! Amazing, right?

Well, don’t go thinking that cell phones can serve as microwaves. Cell phone radiation can’t pop corn. What cell phone radiation can do, however – at least according to a new study – is interrupt the body’s ability to enter a deep sleep. And deep sleep is essential if one wants to wake up feeling refreshed in the morning.

If you’re a frequent peruser of natural health websites like naturalnews.com, this study probably comes as no surprise and you don’t need to be told about it. But due to the fact that virtually everybody in America owns a cell phone and uses it whether in the bathroom or on a motorcycle (yes, I’ve actually seen someone talk on their cell phone while driving a motorcycle), you ought to make your cell phone-addicted friends aware of it.

The research was conducted by two teams of researchers, one from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, the other from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, one of the largest medical universities in all of Europe and one of the best research universities in the entire world (according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities).

The study’s sample involved 71 men and women, a portion of whom reported symptoms they believed to be linked to their high cell phone use, such as headaches.

To test whether or not cell phones might indeed be the culprit, the researchers put the participants into two separate groups and exposed only one of the groups to radiation that was roughly equivalent to the amount of radiation emitted by cell phones. The other group believed they were being exposed to radiation, but in fact were not.

Here’s what they found: After monitoring the participants’ brain waves to determine what stages of sleep they entered, the group exposed to the radiation took longer to reach stage three than those who were exposed to the “sham” radiation. What’s more, when the group exposed to the radiation eventually reached stage four, they weren’t there for long (FYI: There are five stages of sleep. The third and fourth stages are the deep sleep stages, the stages that eventually lead to the REM stage, the fifth and deepest sleep stage. What stage of sleep the body is in alters back and forth throughout the night).

Now, I’m sure some of your friends will doubt the veracity of this study. But what gives it credibility – besides the fact that the research was carried out by a very prestigious and well-recognized institution – is that the participants were given examinations before the testing to see if their symptoms might be attributable to something else (e.g. migraines, perhaps). All of them passed that test. The other thing that gives it credibility is that those exposed to the radiation were more likely to report feeling headachy after the testing was done – including those who did not report symptoms at the start of the study.

If you’re not already limiting your cell phone use, I hope this study might convince you (or your friends). I’m not saying abandon your cell phone; I’m saying LIMIT its use. If you don’t need to be using your cell phone – like in the bathroom, for instance – don’t use it; especially if what you have to say can be said in person. And in person is a better way to say anything.