News JVTech Keeping your headphones on while sleeping is harmful to your health, this scientific study proves it
Published on 01/21/2023 at 10:30
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If you often fall asleep with headphones on because the music relaxes you, we understand you, but in reality, it is a very harmful habit for the health of your ears. This study takes care of explaining everything to us.
Insomnia, a suffering for thousands of people
Not everyone can afford the luxury of falling asleep easily in 5 minutes. Indeed, according to an Ifop survey carried out in 2022, seven out of ten French people suffer from sleep disorders. 43% of women say they wake up at least once a night, compared to 35% of men. It is a small scourge that can have a huge impact on daily life.
According to specialists from the French Research Society and Sleep Medicine (SRFMS):
For the first time since sleep has been epidemiologically observed in France, the average nocturnal sleep time is less than 7 hours.
A problem does exist, and the causes are multiple. But what interests us here is one of the solutions to counter the difficulty of falling asleep: listening to music. You may hear it around you, many people put music on their headphones to relax, think about something else or think about nothing, listen to something that makes them happy to let the mind embark on the Dreamland.
At first glance, this may seem like a good solution, but in reality, this is a real source of additional problems for your health, and this study proves it.
Music in headphones while sleeping, more harm than good
It’s not easy to smash people’s dreams, but unfortunately it is. And the WHO is formal: listening to music with headphones or earphones while sleeping is bad for your health. When you fall asleep, blood circulation is reduced, and the resistance of the eardrums is also reduced. Continuing to listen in sleep therefore increases the risk of impaired hearing or the onset of tinnitus.
Michael K.Scullin is a researcher at the University of Baylor in Texas, and was responsible for leading a study on the behavior of the body when listening to music before bed.
To start, Michael asked his 199 participants what they thought about the impact of music in the ears before sleep. It is interesting to note the general ignorance: 87% of people (myself included) thought that music improves sleep, or at least has no negative weight on the latter. But as you might expect, the results of the experiment prove the exact opposite.
By playing different types of music, at different intervals and to different age groups, everything is clear: the phenomenon of earworms (when you have a sound that stays in your head) is what alters sleep, and makes falling asleep more difficult and sleep itself six times less qualitative.
As with many things, the human body does so much to do what makes it feel good. But often abusing the good stuff becomes more of a negative than a positive. Music is good, but it remains a source of pleasure that must be consumed in low doses. The WHO recommends limiting music listening with headphones to just one hour a day, and not listening to it while sleeping.