Once upon a time, overnight notifications are for extreme emergencies, or on-call staff. But now, millions of Australians are doing the same disruptive thing for no genuine reason – sleeping with their notifications turned all the way up, work pings and all.
According to registered psychologist Amberley Meredith (M.Sc. Health Psychology, MAPPi) and author of Self-Improvement Burnout, who has nearly 25 years of clinical experience in mental health, this habit could be quietly fuelling anxiety and hypervigilance patterns.
And the effects go beyond the bedroom into everyday life.
Leading tech retailer, Becextech.com.au, has partnered with Amberley Meredith to share who is most at-risk, and practical advice on building healthier boundaries with our devices and actionable phone setting changes that can make a real difference.
What Happens in the Brain When Notifications Interrupt Sleep
The brain doesn’t fully clock off when we fall asleep. It keeps monitoring the environment for cues that might require a response. When a notification sound cuts through the quiet, that monitoring system kicks into gear.
“A combination of cognitive vigilance and cognitive activation can activate arousal systems and increase the likelihood of brief awakenings or lighter sleep patterns,” explains Meredith. “Over time, this pattern of interruption may interfere with deeper, more restorative stages of sleep.”
She uses a simple analogy to explain the sleep cycle: “Think of sleep like a lift. We move up and down through stages several times a night. If sleep gets interrupted, we step out of the lift and have to find our way back. Repeated disruption means we spend more time in the lighter, less restorative phases.”
What surprises many is that they believe they’re sleeping through notifications entirely. “People still report feeling tired and unrefreshed the next morning. When we dig deeper, they often realise they are briefly waking or shifting into lighter sleep when alerts come through, even if they don’t fully remember it.”
Why Certain Notification Sounds Trigger Stress Responses
It’s not just the fact of being woken up, it’s how. Sudden, sharp, or unpredictable sounds are significantly more likely to activate the brain’s stress response than softer, more gradual tones.
But Meredith notes something more nuanced is also at play.
“The brain is very good at forming associations, so certain tones can become linked to particular people, demands, or experiences. A specific notification sound may come to be associated with someone demanding or difficult, and that sound alone can trigger a feeling of apprehension, even without conscious thought.”
Work notifications, she adds, carry a particular psychological weight. The professional consequences attached to them, deadlines, expectations, and accountability, mean the brain processes them differently than a text from a friend. Often, they register as a demand requiring immediate action, even at midnight.
How the ‘Always-On’ Mindset Fuels Anxiety
She notes that anticipatory anxiety can develop, too. An underlying sense of always having to be on can begin to colour daytime functioning over time.
Not everyone reaches this point at the same rate. Meredith says certain personality types are more vulnerable than others.
“People-pleasing tendencies, imposter syndrome, and a background of not feeling quite good enough can make someone far more likely to keep notifications on loud. The drive to prove yourself, to make up for perceived shortcomings, can quietly convince you that being reachable at all hours is simply what is expected.”
Practical Phone Settings That Can Improve Sleep and Mental Wellbeing
Meredith recommends approaching change on two levels: the practical and the psychological.
On the practical side, simple phone features can make an immediate difference. “Using features such as ‘focus mode’ or ‘do not disturb’ can be helpful. These allow you to silence notifications while still letting key contacts come through, providing a sense of reassurance that you can be reached if genuinely needed, while removing the constant stream of non-urgent alerts.”
She also recommends setting automatic replies on email and messaging apps, so people know their message has landed and will be responded to, taking the pressure off feeling instantly available.
The psychological side requires a little more honesty. Meredith encourages people to sit with some harder questions: Why do I feel so responsible? What am I getting from being this available, and what is it costing me? Often, she says, the first answer is not the full one.
For Santo Ludy, Managing Director of Becextech.com.au, the solution isn’t about using your phone less, it’s about using it more intentionally: “Our phones are genuinely incredible tools, and an integral part of our lives. But the way most of us have them set up by default wasn’t designed for peace of mind. Small, deliberate changes to how you manage notifications can make a real difference to how you feel, both at night and throughout the day. It’s not about disconnecting. It’s about being intentional with how you stay connected.”
How Long It Takes to Recover From Phone-Induced Anxiety
The good news is that recovery doesn’t take as long as most people expect. Meredith notes that some people may notice early improvements, such as fewer awakenings and feeling more refreshed in the morning, within days to a week of reducing notifications, though longer-standing behavioural and psychological patterns may take more time to shift.
“The goal is to give the brain space to relearn that it doesn’t need to stay in a constant state of readiness,” concludes Meredith.
What does Kevin do?
He has a strict bedtime mode policy – after midnight and when the phone is on charge, the phone is automatically put into Do Not Disturb mode with only immediate family members as exceptions to the rule.
