Warmer Climate Will Rob Us of 58H of Sleep per Year

Hot sleepers, brace yourselves! A new study has been released dealing with yet another threat to your restful sleep: climate change!

For years, scientists have researched how room temperature affects our sleep quality. Today, we know it plays a significant role and is one of the top three factors for a good night’s rest — the other two being light intensity and physical activity.

Hence, saying that heat is bad for both your sleep quality and quantity is nothing new. Though, what may surprise you is the rapid decline at which humanity lost its precious sleep hours due to global weather changes.

According to the study’s findings, we could lose 58 hours of sleep per year by 2099, almost eight sleepless nights (for some).

Over 47,000 people across 68 countries participated in this study between 2015 and 2017. And analysis shows that our sleep has only been getting shorter since 2000. Three decades from now (2050), this figure will increase to 12 nights of shortened sleep and 15 by the end of the century.

However, it’s not as bleak as it sounds. Namely, people from more developed countries can afford bedsheets of higher quality or AC to make hot nights more manageable. As a result, this change in temperature will affect the sleep quality of poorer households the most.

Unfortunately, that’s not all. Scientists say we’ve been slow to adapt to these new weather conditions as sleep loss was observed across all seasons.

All in all, we have to accept the fact that the climate is changing and adapt accordingly. Particularly in the warmer regions of our planet, which will get affected the most.