The scary thing that happens to your brain when you check your phone at night

It seems parents are right when they say no TV or phones before bed, because now science agrees.

Dr Dan Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry from the UCLA School of Medicine, has explained to Business Insider just how damaging the effects of interacting with our phones, tablets or computer screens right before we go to sleep can be.

And to be honest, it's enough to make you immediately want to shut off those screens and dive into a new novel at tuck-down time, instead.

Essentially, by staring into our screens just before bed, we're actually soaking up a 'stream of photons' - which tell our brains that we want to stay awake. Helpful.

When it's time for sleep, our brains naturally secrete melatonin, which allows us to switch off, but consuming all this digital information stops us from doing so. So that's probably why you've found yourself tossing and turning for an hour or so before you can get to sleep.

But the damage, unfortunately, isn't just tiredness the following day caused by a later bedtime. By staying awake, we don't allow those precious neurons of ours to rest, and we also prevent the supportive 'glial' cells from cleaning up the toxins that our neurons have emitted throughout the day.