Working from bed with a laptop: what it does to your sleep

Working from bed now and then won't ruin your sleep, but making it a habit can make it harder to fall asleep there, because your brain starts to treat the bed as a place for being alert. A laptop on your knees is hard on your neck as well. The fix is to keep the bed for sleep where you can, set up a work spot somewhere else, and, if bed really is the only place you have, draw a clear line between the bed you work on and the bed you sleep in.

Plenty of people work from bed because it is warm, because there is no desk, or because the morning email feels easier under a duvet. Most of the harm comes from doing it often and doing it late, so those are the two things to change first.

What does working from bed do to your sleep?

The main concern is association. Sleep specialists often describe the bed as a cue: if it is mostly where you sleep, getting into it tells your body that sleep is next. If it is also where you answer email, take calls and sort out problems, it becomes a cue for being switched on as well. Over time some people find they lie down and feel alert instead of drowsy.

The standard advice that follows is called stimulus control, and it comes from the treatment of insomnia: use the bed only for sleep and sex, go to bed only when sleepy, and get up if you can't sleep. It is aimed at people who already struggle to sleep, so a good sleeper who reads a few emails in bed on a Saturday morning probably doesn't need to worry. The trouble starts when the bed becomes the office.

A few other things pile on:

• The day never ends. Without a desk to walk away from, work and rest happen in the same square meter. There is no moment when you leave.
• Late work slides into bedtime. When you are already in bed, "one more email" at 11 PM feels harmless, and the gap between work and sleep shrinks to nothing.
• The screen is close and bright. A laptop on your knees in a dim bedroom is a bright light at short range, right before sleep.

Is working from bed bad for your back?

It can be, especially for your neck if you do it for hours. A laptop in bed sits low, so you look a long way down at the screen. Your head tips forward, and your neck and upper shoulders hold it there. A soft mattress lets you slide lower as the hour goes on, and the worst positions are the most tempting: lying on your front propped on your elbows, or on your side with your neck twisted toward the screen.

If you do work in bed, sit up against the headboard or a wall with pillows behind your back, put a pillow under your knees, and raise the laptop on a tray or a lap desk. Working from the couch or bed with a MacBook covers that setup in more detail. Apple's safety guidance for its laptops also advises against long skin contact with a Mac that is running or charging, and against covering one with a blanket or pillow, so don't leave it charging under the duvet.

Neck or back pain that keeps coming back, or numbness or tingling in your arms or hands, is a reason to see a doctor or a physiotherapist.

Is it okay to work from bed sometimes?

For most people, yes. An hour of reading on a slow Sunday, or a quick look at messages while you get over a cold, is unlikely to do much. It is worth changing the habit if any of these sound familiar:

• You lie awake in bed more than you used to.
• The laptop comes into bed with you at night, not just in the morning.
• Bed is where you work most days.
• Your neck or back aches by the end of the day.

Where to work instead of bed

The spot doesn't need to be a real desk. It needs to be somewhere that isn't the bed, where you can sit upright.

• The kitchen or dining table is often the best option at home: a flat surface and a chair you can sit straight in. A cushion behind your lower back and a stack of books under the laptop make it much better.
• A chair in the bedroom with a tray works if the bedroom is the only quiet room. Being out of the bed is what counts.
• A folding table that comes out in the morning and goes away in the evening gives a one-room flat some of the feel of an office.

Then make the bed the less tempting option. Make it in the morning, so getting back in feels like undoing something. Keep the Mac's charger at the work spot rather than by the bed, so the laptop lives there overnight.

If bed is the only place you have

In a shared house, a studio apartment or a long illness, the bed may be the only option. You can still draw a line between bed for work and bed for sleep.

1. Work on top of the covers, not under them. A made bed with you sitting on it reads differently from getting under the duvet.
2. Change position. Sit at the other end, face a different way, or lean against the wall instead of the headboard. Sleep in one spot and work in another.
3. Use a tray that only comes out for work. When the tray goes away, work is over.
4. Change clothes. Even swapping one comfortable outfit for another marks the start and end of the day.
5. Use different light. Daylight or a bright lamp while you work, a dim lamp in the evening.
6. Set a stop time and leave the room. Finish at least an hour before you mean to sleep, put the laptop out of reach of the bed, and step outside or into another room for a few minutes, a short stand-in for the commute. A shutdown ritual to end your workday gives that moment some shape.

If you can't sleep at night, get up and sit somewhere else, even a chair in the same room, rather than lying awake. And if you are in bed because you are unwell, follow your doctor's advice first. The point there is rest, and work can wait.

A nudge for late nights in bed

Notchpals, the Mac app with a crew of characters in the notch, can't tell whether your Mac is on a desk or a duvet. It knows the time, your bedtime and whether you have touched the keyboard or trackpad lately, which turns out to be enough. If you are still working in bed late in the evening, your Sleep character comes to find you there. Nod, a koala, runs bedtime like a club with a door policy:

NodBed opens soon. Start finishing up. Nobody gets in while still typing.

That visit comes once, in the hour before the bedtime you set, and Nod tries again if you are still at it after bedtime. If the laptop is open but you haven't touched the keyboard or trackpad for two minutes, Notchpals treats you as away and holds off, and a film playing full screen keeps the crew quiet too.

In the afternoon, a Posture character can help with the other half of the problem. Matsu, a bonsai three hundred years old, has firm views on where a screen belongs:

MatsuRaise the screen to your eyes. I grew toward the light. It did not bend to me.

On a bed, that usually means one more pillow behind you and a tray under the laptop. Press Done once it is raised.