Most research looking at the impact of climate change on human life has focused on how extreme weather events affect economic and societal health outcomes on a broad scale.
Yet climate change may also have a strong influence on fundamental daily human activities.
Scientists from the University of Copenhagen found that increasing ambient temperatures negatively impact human sleep around the globe.
These findings suggest that by the year 2099, suboptimal temperatures may erode 50 to 58 hours of sleep per person per year.
In addition, they found that the temperature effect on sleep loss is substantially larger for residents from lower-income countries as well as in older adults and females.
The research was published in One Earth and was conducted by Kelton Minor et al.
It’s long been known that hot days increase deaths and hospitalizations and worsen human performance.
Recent self-reported data from the United States have suggested that sleep quality decreases during periods of hot weather.
In this study, the team used global sleep data collected from accelerometer-based sleep-tracking wristbands.
The data included 7 million nightly sleep records from more than 47,000 adults across 68 countries spanning all continents except for Antarctica.
The team found that on very warm nights (greater than 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit), sleep declines an average of just over 14 minutes.
The likelihood of getting less than seven hours of sleep also increases as temperatures rise.
In the current research, the team found that under normal living routines, people appear far better at adapting to colder outside temperatures than hotter conditions.
They found warmer outside temperatures consistently erode sleep, with the amount of sleep loss progressively increasing as temperatures become hotter.
These findings indicate that sleep—an essential restorative process integral for human health and productivity—may be degraded by warmer temperatures.
In future work, the team would like to collaborate with global climate scientists, sleep researchers, and technology providers to extend the scope of global sleep and behavioral analyses to other populations and contexts.
If you care about sleep, please read studies about why people with sleep apnea more likely to have high blood pressure, and this sleep supplement may help prevent memory loss, cognitive decline.
For more information about sleep, please see recent studies about how to sleep to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, and results showing this sleep problem may increase risk of autoimmune diseases.
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