In addition to work and family obligations that compete with sleep for time, a quickly changing environment due to growing urbanization and climate change seems to have made it harder to get a good night’s sleep.
Sleep that is of inadequate duration, or inadequate efficiency due to frequent disruption (“tossing and turning”), affects work productivity and quality of life. It also has been linked to a higher risk of chronic diseases including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, and dementia.
The study, published today in Sleep Health, is one of the first to measure multiple environmental variables in the bedroom and analyze their associations with sleep efficiency—the time spent sleeping relative to the time available for sleep.
The analysis found that in a group of 62 participants tracked for two weeks with activity monitors and sleep logs, higher bedroom levels of air pollution (particulate matter <2.5 micrometers or PM2.5), carbon dioxide, noise, and temperature were all linked independently to lower sleep efficiency.
Through this analysis, specialists found that high noise was associated with a 4.7% decline in sleep efficiency compared to low noise, high carbon dioxide with a 4.0% decline compared to low levels, high temperature with a 3.4% decline compared to low temperature, and high PM2.5 with a 3.2% decline compared to low PM2.5.
Two other sleep environment variables, relative humidity and barometric pressure, appeared to have no significant association with sleep efficiency among the participants.
“We seem to habituate subjectively to our bedroom environment, and feel there is no need to improve it, when in fact our sleep may be disturbed night after night as evidenced by the objective measures of sleep we used in our study,” said study lead author Mathias Basner, MD, PhD, professor and director of the division of Sleep and Chronobiology in the department of Psychiatry at Penn Medicine.
Kwa kuongezea majukumu ya kazi na ya familia ambayo hushindana na usingizi kwa wakati, mazingira yanayobadilika haraka kwa sababu ya kuongezeka kwa mijini na mabadiliko ya hali ya hewa yanaonekana kuwa yamefanya iwe ngumu kupata usingizi mzuri wa usiku. Usingizi ambao ni wa muda usiofaa, au ufanisi usiofaa kutokana na usumbufu wa mara kwa mara (<unk>tossing and turning<unk>), huathiri uzalishaji wa kazi na ubora wa maisha. Pia imehusianishwa na hatari ya magonjwa ya muda mrefu, ikiwa ni pamoja na ugonjwa wa moyo, ugonjwa wa kisukari wa aina ya 2, unyogovu, na dementia. Utafiti huo, uliochapishwa leo katika Sleep Health, ni moja ya kwanza kupima vigezo vingi vya mazingira katika chumba cha kulala na kuchambua uhusiano wao na ufanisi wa usingizi - wakati uliotumika kulala ikilinganishwa na wakati unaopatikana kwa usingizi. Uchunguzi huo uligundua kuwa katika kikundi cha washiriki 62 waliofuatiliwa kwa wiki mbili na wafuatiliaji wa shughuli na rekodi za usingizi, viwango vya juu vya uchafuzi wa hewa (chembechembe za PM2.5 au PM2.5), kaboni dioksidi, kelele na joto zote zilihusishwa kwa kujitegemea na ufanisi wa usingizi wa chini. Kwa mfano, utafiti unaonyesha kuwa kelele nyingi zinahusisha kupungua kwa ufanisi wa usingizi kwa 4.7% ikilinganishwa na kelele ndogo, dioksidi ya kaboni ya juu kwa 4.4% ikilinganishwa na viwango vya chini, joto la juu kwa 3.4% ikilinganishwa na joto la chini, na PM2.5 ya juu kwa 3.2% ikilinganishwa na PM2.5. Vitu vingine viwili vya mazingira ya usingizi, unyevu wa jamaa na shinikizo la barometriki, haikuwa na uhusiano wowote na ufanisi wa usingizi kati ya washiriki. "Tunaonekana kuwa na tabia ya kibinafsi katika mazingira yetu ya chumba cha kulala, na tunahisi hakuna haja ya kuboresha, wakati kwa kweli usingizi wetu unaweza kusumbuliwa usiku baada ya usiku kama inavyoonyeshwa na vipimo vya lengo vya usingizi tulivyotumia katika utafiti wetu, ""alisema mwandishi mkuu wa utafiti Mathias Basner, MD, PhD, profesa na mkurugenzi wa mgawanyiko wa usingizi na Chronobiology katika idara ya Psychiatry katika Penn Medicine."