- A new study assessed the impact of climate change on sleep patterns.
- People from lower-income countries are more likely to lose hours of sleep because of rising temperatures.
- Researchers warn that the effects of climate change can result in a heavier burden on healthcare systems.
New research has found that climate change is likely to reduce the number of hours people sleep in a year.
The study published in Cell Press explored how rising temperatures caused by global warming impact sleep.
Researchers used global sleep data collected from accelerometer-based sleep-tracking wristbands. The data include seven million night sleep records from more than 47 000 adults across 68 countries across the world. The researchers made allowances for the seasonal and time-varying confounds.
More heat, less sleep
The study found that higher temperatures reduce sleep globally, amplifying the risk of insufficient sleep. The findings show that by 2099, suboptimal temperatures may erode 50 to 58 hours of sleep per person-year as climate change produces geographic inequalities scaling with future emissions.
The research also found that women, older people and residents of lower-income countries lose the most sleep because of climate change. The researchers warn that climate change can erode sleep, widening global inequalities.
“Our results suggest that temperature-driven sleep loss is evident across demographics, and increasing temperatures lead to some within-person sleep loss across all seasons, with the largest losses during the warmest months and on nights when minimum temperatures exceed 10°C,” the study states.
The researchers also warn that insufficient sleep increases the risk of adverse physiological, behavioural, social, and economic outcomes that have been proven to increase with high temperatures.
Furthermore, the researchers say that lack of sleep will contribute to the burden on healthcare systems.
“By elevating the probability of short sleep, high ambient temperatures may predispose susceptible segments of society to worsened affect, anger and aggression, hypertension and adverse cardiovascular outcomes, diminished cognitive performance, elevated risk of accidents and injuries, and compromised immune system functioning,” the study states.
