Do wireless signals affect sleep?

[hugix]

Wi-Fi/GSM/GPRS/ does have a habit of keeping people up at night, but not because of the 'dangerous radiation' (read in a spooky voice).

It's because of the constant communication. We go to bed with our smartphone and it's the first thing we look at when we wake up. I know people who are wake up when they hear their phone making the "new message" sound.

The best remedy to not loose sleep due to Wi-Fi is to just. Turn. Your. Phone. Off. At. Night.

[rtxoff]

While you can always turn off your devices you can't do it for the neighbour ones. I live in a city and i am constantly counting more then 10 WIFI networks in the neighbourhood.

If WIFI had an impact on human physiology then i definitely would be affected by it but i don't perceive anything.

[lajoswinkler]

I have to turn both my cable modem and Wi-Fi boxes around to face the wall to keep them from making my room look like a low rent disco tech when I'm sleeping.

I also have a problem with my computer slowly heating up the room to uncomfortable levels after a few hours.

Both those issues will interfere with my rest.

And there's your problem.

Sleeping in unnaturally hot air causes problems. That's actually both valid and proven. Turn off your computer or, if you must keep it on, open the windows or something.

Hot dry air and light (especially flickering and bluish) are known sleep deprivators.

[Drunken Hobo]

That's one of the stupidest sites out there that looks somewhat legit. That makes it dangerous.

It's a strange mix between hilarious & infuriating. Hilarious that people actually believe such nonsense, yet infuriating that people will actually die because of the advice it has given.

[Rhidian]

Is it possible that any high-pitched sounds generated by the electronics could be impacting sleep? We're not conscious of high-pitched sounds as we age and lose hearing sensitivity, but might they impact someone who could hear them to some degree (or not)?

[jfx]

Or skull. They can hit the eye from just about any direction. I wonder how much damage a human retina receives after a lifetime from cosmic rays alone...

It's not the retina alone. Long time astronauts on Mir and ISS have higher incidence for Cataracts. As for radiation: Six Months on the ISS equal about 20 Years of the average yearly dose on the ground. Prolonged stays in low gravity also change the shape of your eyeballs.

[tomf]

Of course you should turn off any devices with cooling fans to avoid dying of fan death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

[J.Random]

Do wireless signals affect sleep, and what might the mechanism be if so?

Of course they do! IIRC, the mechanism involved is called nocebo effect. It may be especially annoying (even deadly) when combined with hypochondria.

[Albert VDS]

Sound could be a real cause. But your brain blocks out sounds which it's exposed to for a long period of time.

Like the ticking of a clock, aquarium pumps, a hissing lamp, etc. are all sounds which can be blocked.

They are blocked because they aren't perceived as dangerous. Same thing goes for smell.

[lajoswinkler]

Is it possible that any high-pitched sounds generated by the electronics could be impacting sleep? We're not conscious of high-pitched sounds as we age and lose hearing sensitivity, but might they impact someone who could hear them to some degree (or not)?

I never heard of proof that it has any impact, and I see no mechanism of action for such thing to occur. If it's ultrasound, I don't see the problem. If it's high pitch, but audible, it's rather low intensity so it would annoy at best. Like a mosquito.

Electronics shouldn't produce such sounds. Sometimes they do and it means something inside is about to fail or has failed.

It's not the retina alone. Long time astronauts on Mir and ISS have higher incidence for Cataracts. As for radiation: Six Months on the ISS equal about 20 Years of the average yearly dose on the ground. Prolonged stays in low gravity also change the shape of your eyeballs.

I know, but I was talking about surface dwelling humans. We are constantly showered by cosmic rays and secondary radiation. It would be interesting to see how much damage it induces to our retina in one lifetime.

Of course you should turn off any devices with cooling fans to avoid dying of fan death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

Yes, that's one of the stupidest myths coming from eastern Asian countries. Another one is obsession over blood types.

[magnemoe]

Of course you should turn off any devices with cooling fans to avoid dying of fan death http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

LOL, and notice how idiotic others daily fears look to us.

However fan death depend on radius, large fans like helicopter rotors and airplane propellers kills people every year.

[Rhidian]

Of course they do! IIRC, the mechanism involved is called nocebo effect. It may be especially annoying (even deadly) when combined with hypochondria.

The Nocebo Effect by definition cannot be a mechanism, since it doesn't explain how wireless signals cause the effect; it's just a response that is observed.

That being said, although I used Wi-Fi as an example of Wireless signals in my opening post, that's not what a Wireless signal exclusively is. Visible light and audible sound are technically wireless signals as well, which others in this thread have mentioned could be a possible cause. In that case, it would be more correct to say that the Wi-Fi shouldn't affect sleep while light and sounds generated by the computer/router might, which was already said in this thread.

[Dodgey]

Ok stop, classifying light and sound as wireless signals just so you can say that wireless signals do affect sleep is just silly. While technically true it causes the statement to loose all meaning. We have two separate senses for detecting light and sound, they are stimuli to us, of course they will effect sleep.

I do think that you missed the meaning of I.Random's statement, a nocebo is typically a psychological effect. I.e. it is all in your head. Wireless signals in the typical sense do not have an effect on sleep.

[Rhidian]

My issue with J. Random's statement was that he said that Wireless signals do affect sleep, but then goes on to say it's due to a nocebo effect, which means that the signals themselves are not actually affecting the sleep.

You're right though, Dodgey, it is silly for me to be all technical with light and sound. When I posed the question of "Do wireless signals affect sleep" I used the word "wireless signal" rather than "Wi-Fi" because I wasn't wanting it to be Wi-Fi exclusive, but I glanced over the fact that in common usage wireless signals = Wi-Fi.

[Soda Popinski]

Ok stop, classifying light and sound as wireless signals just so you can say that wireless signals do affect sleep is just silly. While technically true it causes the statement to loose all meaning. We have two separate senses for detecting light and sound, they are stimuli to us, of course they will effect sleep.

If you count my snoring as a wireless signal, that definitely affects my wife's sleep.

I actually had a long conversation with a friend's family friend, who was convinced that Smart Electric Meters (utility meters that send data usage electronically, instead of needing a meter reader). He was convinced these things sent out "bullet shaped" EM signals that would destroy your cells, give you cancer, and may even control your mind... Utter non-sense, as only ionizing radiation can damage cells, which Smart Meters don't put out. That was an interesting conversation.

While looking into the possibility of the human body acting as something of an antenna (we are bags of electrically conducting salt water), I came across research from Microsoft into using the ambient EM fields your body interacts with to determine body position based on electrodes on your skin.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/cue/HumAntenna/

[magnemoe]

If you count my snoring as a wireless signal, that definitely affects my wife's sleep.

I actually had a long conversation with a friend's family friend, who was convinced that Smart Electric Meters (utility meters that send data usage electronically, instead of needing a meter reader). He was convinced these things sent out "bullet shaped" EM signals that would destroy your cells, give you cancer, and may even control your mind... Utter non-sense, as only ionizing radiation can damage cells, which Smart Meters don't put out. That was an interesting conversation.

While looking into the possibility of the human body acting as something of an antenna (we are bags of electrically conducting salt water), I came across research from Microsoft into using the ambient EM fields your body interacts with to determine body position based on electrodes on your skin.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/cue/HumAntenna/

Remember that lots of people have an agenda and then shapes their belief around it.

Some people dislike smart meters as they can give your power company an log of your electrical usage. Yes its not any data compared to mobile and Internet companies can gather or we know Facebook and Google gather.

However this make it easy to accept all other idiotic ideas about them. One valid response would be to move away and upwind of the one saying dumbness leak out and affect others.

The body block bluetooth signals very well, as I understand the frequency is blocked very well by hydrogen in water, part of the reason it was unused.

This makes it less than perfect for wearable stuff, using the body would be far smarter.

[rtxoff]

Well exactly this blocking might be a problem with signals in the microwave range. Blocking in this case means absorbing and absorbing means heating. The amount of energy absorbed might be insignificant however we can't exclude a negative impact on the body for 100%. If there is an effect it would be a very little one and i guess we need further research to be 100% sure about the risks of it.

[Alchemist]

One man once asked my opinion on such story:

He was holding a cassette player with the speaker right to his ear and singing along. And once he managed to get perfect resonance and something strange happened: he felt some warm air with his ear (and later he found some kind of dust on his ear) and there was some strange feeling and he almost fainted. And after that some of his ideas and life priorities mystically changed.

I think he managed to get the speaker into conterresonance and got hit right in the head by acoustic frequency electromagnetic field. That could probably interfere with electric signals in the brain.

But if these frequencies is what can really affect brain, the power cables are more of the problem than wifi, and even then you'll probably have to wrap the cable around your head to get notable effects.

[magnemoe]

Well exactly this blocking might be a problem with signals in the microwave range. Blocking in this case means absorbing and absorbing means heating. The amount of energy absorbed might be insignificant however we can't exclude a negative impact on the body for 100%. If there is an effect it would be a very little one and i guess we need further research to be 100% sure about the risks of it.

Sunlight is also blocked and absorbed by your body, sunlight is also more energy rich, ultraviolet light is ionizing, this can cause cancer, normal light can not.

Yes to high effect is dangerous anyway, sunlight trough an magnifying glass, an laser for visible light, an powerful radar or inside microwave oven for microwaves.

its has been done lots of tests and none has found anything, its easy to test, both animal experiments and people who is exposed to lots of microwaves during their work and see if it has any noticeable effects. If high levels don't have any effect low levels will not have any either and we are talking way more effect than mobile phones during use.

because of the inverse cube law anything else has way less effect. Device radiates in all direction double the distance and you get 1/8 of the effect.

[rtxoff]

You can't compare sunlight or any other light with microwave radiation. Microwave radiation is causing the dielectric heating which is an totaly different effect then sunlight causes. Through evolution our bodies may had adapt to sunlight, microwave radiation caused by humans is a rather new occurence which may impose risks we don't know about yet.

[ZetaX]

Device radiates in all direction double the distance and you get 1/8 of the effect.

1/4

I think he managed to get the speaker into conterresonance and got hit right in the head by acoustic frequency electromagnetic field. That could probably interfere with electric signals in the brain.

What is "acoustic frequency electromagnetic field" even supposed to mean¿ All of your post sounds very weird.

[lajoswinkler]

Well exactly this blocking might be a problem with signals in the microwave range. Blocking in this case means absorbing and absorbing means heating. The amount of energy absorbed might be insignificant however we can't exclude a negative impact on the body for 100%. If there is an effect it would be a very little one and i guess we need further research to be 100% sure about the risks of it.

The heating is present, but so far everything says it's insignificant. The intensities of such fields at appropriate distances are benign. That's what SAR is for.

Things like long distance microwave transmitters are extremely powerful and will cause more than discomfort if you put yourself in front of their dishes for a longer time and don't move so that the tissues are exposed constantly to the same intensities. In some cases you can't even feel it.

Wifi routers at home are laughably pathetic when compared to those things. 20 m away and signal strength is already quite poor. We also move around in those fields. Rotation, translation.

If you'd strap several routers to your head and wear them 24/7, you might experience some minor problems, but it would take chronic exposure, i.e. months or even years.

We can never 100% rule out any effect but "for all intents and purposes", there's nothing to be afraid of. That's what the end user wants to know.

[magnemoe]

You can't compare sunlight or any other light with microwave radiation. Microwave radiation is causing the dielectric heating which is an totaly different effect then sunlight causes. Through evolution our bodies may had adapt to sunlight, microwave radiation caused by humans is a rather new occurence which may impose risks we don't know about yet.

Agree that you can not compare sunlight with microwaves as sunlight causes lot of cancer. Damage because of microwaves are rare.

Anyway the argument hold somewhat true for mobile phones it has been lots of research on as you hold it next to your head while wifi routers stands meters away.

The research has mostly focused on damage from long term use who is very hard to disprove with 100% certainly.

Short term effects like concentration problems/ oversensitivity to electrical fields has always turned out as placebo, its simple to test with blind tests. Nobody can detect an device who is not visible while an visible one who is not active cause reactions. Yes people get sick of inactive cell towers.

[glacierre]

Is it possible that any high-pitched sounds generated by the electronics could be impacting sleep? We're not conscious of high-pitched sounds as we age and lose hearing sensitivity, but might they impact someone who could hear them to some degree (or not)?

I never heard of proof that it has any impact, and I see no mechanism of action for such thing to occur. If it's ultrasound, I don't see the problem. If it's high pitch, but audible, it's rather low intensity so it would annoy at best. Like a mosquito.

Electronics shouldn't produce such sounds. Sometimes they do and it means something inside is about to fail or has failed.

Actually, many cheap transformers buzz in barely audible frequency, and defective transformers are probably the main source of EM radiation in a household.

Infrasound, by the way, has some well documented psychological / somatic effects.

[lajoswinkler]

Actually, many cheap transformers buzz in barely audible frequency, and defective transformers are probably the main source of EM radiation in a household.

Infrasound, by the way, has some well documented psychological / somatic effects.

Loud infrasound. Thunder from far away, sea waves, those are louder sources, but those effects were measured with intensive artificial sources.

Household appliances such as cheap transformers do not emit such sounds.