Home LivingWellnessSleepWhy people need more sleep during winter, reveals new studyFind it hard to get out of bed in the winter? It turns out you need more sleep during the season…When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Home LivingWellnessSleepWhy people need more sleep during winter, reveals new studyFind it hard to get out of bed in the winter? It turns out you need more sleep during the season…When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Find it hard to get out of bed in the winter? It turns out you need more sleep during the season…
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Polina Kovaleva / Pexels)
(Image credit: Polina Kovaleva / Pexels)
During the winter months, the evenings are darker and the weather is colder so it’s unsurprising that people tend to stay inside in an attempt to hibernate. This time of year also leaves many people feeling tired, sluggish and rundown, making it harder to get out of bed in the morning as a result. But rather than feeling lazy and antisocial for wanting to stay at home and comfortable on thebest mattress, it turns out humans may need more sleep during the winter than the other seasons.
With this information, the researchers put together a sleep study group made up of participants who lived in an urban environment with high levels of light pollution and low levels of natural light. In the study, the scientists found that despite these sleep disruptors the participants got 30 minutes more REM sleep in the winter than in the summer.
(Image credit: Cottonbro Studio / Pexels)
(Image credit: Cottonbro Studio / Pexels)
If you’re unsure what REM sleep is, it’s a stage of sleep associated with dreaming and memory consolidation. According toSleep Foundation, it plays an important role in brain development and emotional processing, so getting more REM sleep during the winter as this study suggests is good for a healthy brain.
The researchers have stated that there needs to be more research done around this, specifically to see if the results can be replicated with study participants who have no sleeping difficulties. Having said that, this is a clear indication that the changing of the seasons affects sleep habits, mainly resulting in people going to sleep earlier and waking up later due to the darker days.
How to sleep better during the winter
As the study suggests, we need more sleep during the winter but before you jump gleefully under the covers, it’s important to make sure the sleep you’re getting is good quality. If you’re getting a bad night’s sleep, regardless of its duration, you could be left feeling tired, irritable and unproductive the next day.
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Below are a few tips on how to set yourself up for sleep success during the winter. We’ve looked into this a bit further in our8 ways to improve your sleep habits in 2023but here are 3 key things you should be doing to get a better night’s rest.
Create a bedtime routine
Make your bedroom as cosy as possible
If you make your bedroom more inviting, you’ll find it easier to get cosy and go to sleep. Try to remove all distractions from your bedroom like your phone, tablet or other electronics and have a quick tidy before bed so you don’t feel too anxious about the mess around you. It’s also important to make sure your bed is comfortable and you feel supported and at a nice temperature. Investing in thebest duvetand thebest pillowcan help with this.
Take in natural light
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