Why you should spend your evenings without your phone

"I'm exhausted, but somehow I'm still lying in bed scrolling at midnight."

If that sounds like your evenings, you're not alone. By the end of the day there's not much energy left, and for most of us it goes straight into the phone. The good news is that the evening is also where putting the phone down shows up most clearly in your body.

What the research says about phones and sleep

In 2022, researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland followed 75 people for four months. They tracked how people used their phones and measured their sleep with an Oura ring.

On nights when people used their phone in bed, they took longer to fall asleep, spent more time awake, and had a higher average heart rate and lower heart rate variability. Here's the encouraging part: using the phone earlier in the evening, outside of bed, didn't hurt their sleep (Kheirinejad et al., 2022).

So you don't have to give up your phone all evening. The last stretch before sleep is what matters most.

Why the evening matters

It's when the day gets put away. Without a phone pulling at you, your mind finishes its own business: the conversation you keep replaying, the plan for tomorrow. With one, all of that waits until you're trying to fall asleep.

It's the time you share. In most homes, the evening is the only time everyone's in the same place. It's the easiest time to be together, and the easiest time to miss it.

Your body is getting ready for sleep. Your heart rate settles and your temperature drops. A phone keeps you alert right when your body is trying to slow down.

How to spend a phone-free evening

• Cook, and clean up together. The most ordinary hour of the day is often the best one.
• Take a short walk after dinner. Ten minutes is plenty.
• Play something. Cards, a board game, music. Anything with other people in the room.
• Take a bath or a warm shower. Warm water followed by a cool bedroom is an old, reliable path to sleep.
• Read in a chair, then in bed. A book gives your hands and eyes something to do that doesn't talk back.
• Get tomorrow ready. Pack the bag, write the list. Small jobs like these quiet a busy mind.

What changes in your body

I've tracked my own phone-free time against my Oura ring since July. One person, about twelve weeks. A field note, not a study.

On evenings I put my phone away for at least ten minutes between 6 p.m. and midnight, I fell asleep in about 17 minutes, against 23 on evenings I didn't (17 evenings with, 8 without). My sleep score was a little higher too: 86 against 84.

An earlier look at the same data, where I drew the evening from my own bedtime instead of the clock, showed a much bigger gap: 15 minutes against 42. Which version is closer depends on where you draw the line, and I need more evenings to know for sure. Either way, it points the same direction as the Oulu study: less time lying awake.

Which kind of evening suits you

• If you can't give up the whole evening: start with the last half hour. Phone away at a set time, then bed. That's the window the research points to.
• If you share a home: try one phone-free evening a week as a household. Everyone's phone goes in the same spot.
• If your evenings are your quiet time alone: pick one ritual, like a bath, a chapter or a walk, and make it the one thing your phone never joins.
• If your phone needs somewhere to go at night: that's exactly why we designed the Saalo Box. Close the lid and a session starts on its own. If you wear an Oura ring, the Saalo app shows how your own sleep responds on phone-free evenings. We also compared other phone boxes for the home if you'd like to see the options.

For more on nights, see our guide to keeping your phone out of the bedroom. For the rest of the day, there's mornings and lunch.

The day ends better when it ends with the people in the room.