Weather

Climate change is likely to reduce the amount of sleep people get each year – Is it up because of that?


Peer-reviewed publications

CELLULAR PRESS

Most research on the impacts of climate change on human well-being has focused on how extreme weather events affect economic and social outcomes on a large scale. . However, climate change can also have dramatic effects on basic everyday human activities – including a wide range of behavioral, psychological and physiological outcomes essential for health. In a study published May 20 in the journal One EarthThe investigators report that increasing ambient temperature is negatively impacting human sleep globally.

The team say their findings suggest that by 2099, suboptimal temperatures could erode a person’s sleep by 50 to 58 hours per year. In addition, they found that the effect of temperature on sleep loss was substantially greater for residents from lower-income countries as well as for older adults and women.

“Our results indicate that sleep – an essential restorative process integral to human health and productivity – may be impaired by warmer temperatures,” said first author Kelton. Minor said (@keltonminor) of the University of Copenhagen. “To make informed climate policy decisions in the future, we need to better account for the full range of plausible future climate impacts that extend from society’s greenhouse gas emissions choices. nowadays”.

It has long been known that hot days increase deaths and hospitalizations and worsen human productivity, yet the biological and behavioral mechanisms underlying these effects remain unknown. is not well understood. Recent U.S. self-reported data have suggested that subjective sleep quality declines during periods of heat, but how temperature fluctuations may influence changes in sleep outcomes? Objective sleep in people living across many global climates remains unclear.

“In this study, we provide the first planet-scale evidence that warmer-than-average temperatures erode human sleep,” Minor said. “We show that this erosion occurs primarily by delaying when people fall asleep and increasing when they wake up in hot weather.”

To conduct this study, the investigators used global anonymized sleep data collected from accelerometer-based sleep monitoring wearables. The data includes 7 million nightly sleep records from more than 47,000 adults across 68 countries spanning every continent except Antarctica. Measurements from the wristband used in this study have previously been shown to be consistent with independent measurements of wake and sleep.

Research shows that on very warm nights (more than 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit), sleep is reduced by an average of just over 14 minutes. The ability to sleep less than seven hours also increased with increasing temperature.

“Our bodies are highly adapted to maintain a stable body temperature, on which our lives depend,” Minor says. “Every night, however, they do something remarkable that most of us are unaware of – they radiate heat from our cores to the surroundings by dilating blood vessels and increasing blood flow. blood to our hands and feet.” He added that in order for our bodies to transfer heat, the surroundings need to be cooler than we are.

Early laboratory controlled studies of sleep show that both humans and animals sleep worse when room temperatures are too hot or too cold. But this research is limited by how people act in the real world: they change the temperature of their sleeping environment to make them more comfortable.

In the current study, the investigators found that in normal living habits, people appear to be more adapted to cold outside temperatures than to hotter conditions. “Through different seasons, demographics, and climate contexts, warmer outside temperatures frequently erode sleep, with the amount of sleep loss increasing as temperatures become hotter,” Minor said. speak.

An important observation is that people in developing countries seem to be more affected by these changes. It is possible that the prevalence of air conditioning in the developed world may play a role, but the researchers were unable to pinpoint why because they did not have data on access to air conditioning. gas between objects. The researchers also note that because they have found compelling evidence that the effects of warming temperatures on sleep loss are uneven globally, the new study needs to look specifically at population groups more vulnerable populations, especially those living in the hottest and poorest regions in history – the world.

In future work, the team wants to collaborate with global climate scientists, sleep researchers and technology providers to expand the scope of global sleep and behavior analysis to other areas. populations and other contexts. Additionally, they are interested in studying the impact of increased outdoor temperatures on the sleep outcomes of people incarcerated in hot climates, who may have particularly limited access to air conditioning. .

###

This research was supported by the Danish Agency for Higher Education and Science and the Danish Foundation for Independent Research.

One Earth, Minor et al. “Rising temperatures are eroding people’s sleep globally” https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(22)00209-3

One Earth (@OneEarth_CP), published by Cell Press, is a monthly journal featuring articles from the fields of natural, social, and applied sciences. One Earth is the home for high-quality research that explores and addresses today’s major environmental challenges, published in the science of environmental change and sustainability. A sister magazine to Cabinet, Chemand Joule, One Earth desires to break down barriers between disciplines and stimulate the cross-pollination of ideas with a platform that unites communities, fosters dialogue and encourages transformative research. Go to http://www.cell.com/one-earth. For Cell Press media notifications, contact [email protected].


JOURNEYS

One Earth

DOI

10.1016 / j.oneear.2022.04.008

RESEARCH METHODS

Observational research

RESEARCH SUBJECTS

Everyone

ARTICLE TITLE

Rising temperatures eat away at people’s sleep around the globe

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

May 20, 2022

From EurekAlert!





Source link

news7g

News7g: Update the world's latest breaking news online of the day, breaking news, politics, society today, international mainstream news .Updated news 24/7: Entertainment, Sports...at the World everyday world. Hot news, images, video clips that are updated quickly and reliably

Related Articles

Back to top button