Have you too shifted on your bed sides in the dead of the night, unable to sleep because of the heat? The temperatures this season have been scorching in many parts of India, with the northwestern regions of the country suffering a almost hellish heatwave. Despite hot days, people often look for respite in the night, as usually temperatures go down with the sun. But this time, even nights have been hot, and scientists say the world could be looking at sleep loss as one of the effects of increasing heatwaves due to climate change.
A recent study claims that rising global temperatures as a result of climate change may reduce the amount of sleep people get each year. That doesn’t sound good, as sleep is said to be one of the markers, and causes of a person’s good health. But what does this study say? News18 explains in detail:
The Study Tracked 47,000 Adults in 68 Nations
Lead author of the study, Kelton Minor, who works at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, said in a release: “In this study, we provide the first planetary-scale evidence that warmer-than-average temperatures erode human sleep. We show that this erosion occurs primarily by delaying when people fall asleep and by advancing when they wake up during hot weather.”
The data came from sleep-tracking bracelets worn by over 47,000 adults in 68 nations, representing every continent except Antarctica, the study published Friday in the journal One Earth said.
According to the researchers, inadequate temperatures may rob 50 to 58 hours of sleep per person per year by the year 2099. Furthermore, they discovered that the influence of temperature on sleep loss is significantly greater in inhabitants of lower-income nations, as well as in older persons and females.
What Did It Find?
Sleep depreciates by little over 14 minutes on really warm nights (more than 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the study. As the temperature rises, the risk of getting less than seven hours of sleep rises as well.
“Our bodies are highly adapted to maintain a stable core body temperature, something that our lives depend on,” Minor said in the release. “Yet every night they do something remarkable without most of us consciously knowing—they shed heat from our core into the surrounding environment by dilating our blood vessels and increasing blood flow to our hands and feet.” He goes on to say that in order for our bodies to transfer heat, the environment around us must be cooler than we are.
Early controlled investigations in sleep labs discovered that when the room temperature is excessively hot or too cold, both humans and animals sleep worse. However, the real-world behaviour of humans is to adjust the temperature of their sleeping environment to make it more comfortable, the release said.
The researchers discovered that people appear to adapt to cooler outdoor temperatures significantly better than hotter circumstances under regular living situations. Warmer outdoor temperatures consistently erode sleep across seasons, demographics, and climate contexts, Minor adds, with the amount of sleep loss continuously increasing as temperatures rise.
Sleep Is Important, So This Finding Should ‘Dictate Policy Decisions’
“In order to make informed climate policy decisions moving forward, we need to better account for the full spectrum of plausible future climate impacts extending from today’s societal greenhouse gas emissions choices,” Minor said.
According to the researcher, while majority of study into the effects of climate change on human existence has focused on how extreme weather events affect overall economic and societal health outcomes, the phenomenon may have a significant impact on basic human activities, such as a variety of behavioural, psychological, and physiological consequences that are critical to human well-being.
Getting enough sleep is critical for maintaining one’s health and well-being. Sleep is just as important to their health as regular exercise and a well-balanced diet.
Without further getting into the details of how sleep impacts human health, studies across the board have documented how sleep deprivation can contribute to heart disease, heart attack, heart failure, irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, even stroke, and diabetes.
‘Developing Nations More at Risk’
The study further suggests that people in developing nations appear to be more influenced by these shifts. It’s likely that the higher prevalence of air conditioning in industrialised countries has something to do with it, but the researchers couldn’t say for sure because they didn’t have data on air conditioning availability among the subjects. The researchers also point out that, because they found solid evidence that the impact of rising temperatures on sleep loss is unequal over the world, future study should focus on more susceptible groups, such as those living in the world’s hottest—and traditionally poorest—regions.
Millions have been sweltering in a dangerous early summer heatwave across many countries in South Asia. India and Pakistan are facing debilitating heat, that has led to power and water shortages, as well. Heatwaves have killed over 6,500 people in India since 2010, according to reports, and scientists say climate change is making them harsher and more frequent across South Asia.
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