Study: Global warming and insomnia

According to studies, global warming significantly affects human sleep. The climate catastrophe is now a fact, as evidenced every year by the ever-increasing seasonal temperatures.

However, no one could have imagined that this phenomenon would affect sleep, in addition to everyday life, to a particularly large extent. According to a study published by The Guardian, it has been found that as temperatures rise at night, it becomes more and more difficult to fall asleep. Specifically, the average person has already “lost” 44 hours of sleep per year, resulting in 11 nights of less than seven hours of sleep (the standard measure of adequate sleep).

Experts say the number of lost hours of sleep will increase even more as global warming continues. However, there are certain groups of people who are more susceptible to this disease.

Who is affected the most and why? Sleep problems with a 1°C increase in bedroom temperature observed in women are about a quarter higher than in men. They are also twice as common in people over 65 and three times as common in people in less affluent countries.

The researchers used data from sleep-tracking bracelets worn by 47,000 people for 7 million nights in 68 countries.

The explanation given by scientists in relation to the above categories of people is as follows. Women may be more affected by insomnia because their body cools down more slowly than men when they go to bed. Women also have higher levels of body fat on average, which slows down cooling. As for the elderly, it is known that their body regulates body temperature with great difficulty with age. Older people are said to sleep much less at night.

“The worrying thing is that we found evidence that people already living in warmer climates experience more sleep disturbances per degree of temperature rise,” said Kelton Minor of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, who led the study.

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