{"id":380578,"date":"2026-07-21T05:26:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/380578\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T05:26:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:26:30","slug":"medical-myth-busters-doctor-warns-late-night-scrolling-can-disrupt-sleep-cause-fatigue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/380578\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical Myth Busters: Doctor warns late-night scrolling can disrupt sleep, cause fatigue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 Late-night scrolling in bed may feel harmless, but it can disrupt sleep and affect how you feel the next day, according to Dr. Luis Ortiz  who spoke to ARC El Paso on the Medical Myth Busters segment. <\/p>\n<p>Ortiz said many people spend time at night \u201cscrolling through Instagram, watching all the stories\u201d and may think it\u2019s a healthy habit \u201cbut it is not,\u201d because it can interfere with sleep. <\/p>\n<p>He explained that as the body prepares for bed, metabolism begins to slow down and sleep becomes \u201cextremely important because it restores our energy for the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Using a phone or tablet at bedtime can throw off that process, Ortiz said, because the blue light emitted from screens \u201ctricks your brain into thinking that it is still daylight.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>RECOMMENDED: <a href=\"https:\/\/kfoxtv.com\/community\/arc-el-paso\/medical-myth-busters-is-back-on-mondays-with-dr-luis-ortiz-in-the-hot-seat?SRC=LINK\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Medical Myth Busters: Busting Metabolism myths<\/a><\/p>\n<p><p>Medical Myth Busters: Doctor warns late-night scrolling can disrupt sleep, cause fatigue<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>He said that can affect hormones, including melatonin, which he described as \u201ca hormones that preps our brain and tells it that it is time to go to bed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ortiz said melatonin levels \u201cgo lower on those people who watch their phones,\u201d which can lead to poor-quality sleep. <\/p>\n<p>The next day, he said, people may feel tired and have poor concentration, and \u201cit\u2019s gonna affect every aspect of your mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As for when to put the phone away, Ortiz said studies suggest turning off screens between one hour and one hour and a half before going to bed. While he said there isn\u2019t a \u201cclear cut timing,\u201d he emphasized building better habits, including trying to stop using phones about an hour and a half before bedtime and picking up a book instead.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kfoxtv.com\/sign-up\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Sign up <\/a>to receive the top interesting stories from in and around our community once daily in your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KFOX14\/CBS4) \u2014 Late-night scrolling in bed may feel harmless, but it can disrupt sleep and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-380578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}