Binge-watching television leads poor sleep,obesity and fatigue in young adults, says study

As technology is easing everything, people are now more watching tv online.In this, they indulge in binge watching which means watching multiple consecutive episodes of the same television show in one sitting on a screen, be it a television, laptop, computer or tablet.

A recent study found that Binge-watching television can cause poorer sleep quality, more fatigue, and increased insomnia in young adults. Researchers also found that more than 80 per cent of young adults identified themselves as a binge-watcher, with 20.2 per cent of them binge-watching at least a few times a week.According to experts, people eat more while watching episodes that lead to obesity which, in turn, causes depression owing to weight stigma and poor self-esteem. 

Those who identified as a binge-watcher reported more fatigue, more symptoms of insomnia, poorer sleep quality and greater alertness prior to going to sleep. A detailed analysis found that binge-watchers had a 98 per cent higher tendency of having poor sleep quality compared with those who are not binge- watcher."We found that the more often young people binge-watch, the higher their cognitive pre-sleep arousal," said Liese Exelmans, the doctoral candidate at the University of Leuven in Belgium.

The study involved 423 young adults who were 18 to 25 years old, with an average age of 22 years. Sixty-two per cent of participants were women, and 74 per cent were students.They completed an online survey assessing regular television viewing, binge-watching, sleep quality, fatigue, insomnia, and pre-sleep alertness. "Bingeable shows often have a complex narrative structure that makes viewers become completely immersed into the story," said Jan Van den Bulck, a professor at the University of Michigan. This intense engagement with television content could require a longer period to 'cool down' before going to sleep, thus affecting sleep overall.

According to researchers, this habit negatively affected sleep quality, fatigue, and insomnia. so techniques such as relaxation and mindfulness could be valuable to target sleep problems associated with binge-watching.