The odd bad night’s sleep can really ruin your day, but thankfully for many of us it’s not that common.
Findings from a huge study in the US have shown that this could all be about to change though, and it’s down to global warming.
A bad night’s sleep could be twice as likely by just 2050 and it’s thanks to how our body reacts to even slight changes in temperature.
The study, the largest yet that looks into both sleep quality and temperature, asked some 760,000 Americans to give an estimate of when they had experienced a bad night’s rest within the last 30 days.
The scientists then matched this to temperature variations in their respective parts of the country and found a clear link.
What they found was alarming, if the temperature rose even just one degree above the local average the result would be three additional nights of unpleasant sleep.
If that sounds bad then in the context of the entire country it’s practically disastrous. If the scientist’s model is even remotely accurate then just a one degree temperature increase would result in 110 million additional sleep deprived nights every single year.
The study, published in Science Advances, goes on to point out that your financial situation and age can play a part as well.
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Those with a salary below $50,000 were three times more likely to suffer from a bad night’s sleep during warmer temperatures.
Over 65? You’re twice as likely to suffer from the temperature increases compared to the younger generation.
The study isn’t perfect of course. For starters the scientists involved admit that it doesn’t account for temperature variations within cities.
What it can do though is give a broad view of a problem that clearly needs to be researched further.
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