Videospiele und Schlaf – negativer Zusammenhang oder unbedenkliches Zocken?

Background: Playing video games before going to bed may have an impact on the quality and quantity of sleep. Objectives: The determination of factors that are influenced by playing video games and how these factors can be made measurable. Methods: Recent studies were analyzed and discussed to conduct an overview and create recommendations for practice. Results: Especially in children and adolescents, playing video games before going to bed leads to an increased sleep onset latency and an overall increase in fatigue. Decisive factors are the screen brightness (exposure of blue light) and the activation of the sympathetic nervous system caused by playing video games. Action video games in particular can lead to a greater activation than calmer video games or watching a movie. Conclusion: In summary, video gaming can have a negative impact on the sleep of video gamers. Prolonged sleep onset latency and reduced deep sleep phases can occur because of video gaming in the evening. Especially sympathicotonia appears to play a more dominant role than blue light exposure. Children, adolescents, and professional video game players are potential risk groups and thus need to be educated about responsible video game behavior. Various parameters can be used to quantify sympathetic nerve activity. In particular, heart rate variability is a feasible parameter.