Apple iOS 9.3 released – and with Night Shift it could help you sleep better

The new lighting mode will be more attuned to your circadian rhythms
Easy on the eye: the new Night Shift setting on iOS 9.3 could help you sleep better
Apple
Ben Travis21 March 2016

Many of us are guilty at staying up a little bit later than we should because we’re busy refreshing our smartphones.

With the lure of Twitter and Netflix, it can be difficult to switch off – and unnatural light from phone and tablet screens is supposedly not good for your sleeping pattern.

However, a new feature on Apple’s latest iOS software could help you get a better night’s sleep if you’re an evening iPhone or iPad user.

iOS 9.3, available to download immediately, brings a Night Shift setting which changes the colour settings of your Apple device screen depending on what time of the day it is.

During the day, iPhones with Night Shift will display bright, cool, blue hues, and in the evening it will use warm, orange hues that don’t take as much of a toll on your brain as it winds down for the night.

It’s thought that orange hues are more in tune with our natural ‘circadian rhythms’ – before the advent of electricity, our bodies were more attuned to function around the daily light of the sun.

If you find yourself in a vicious cycle of not being able to sleep, staying up to watch ‘one more episode’ on your phone, and then still not being able to sleep, see if the latest iOS update has any effect.

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