Awake to the consequences: How climate change is affecting our sleep

There are many traditional reasons for a bad night’s sleep from a snoring partner to a neighbour's car alarm at 3am. But science suggests we may now add another culprit to the list: climate change

Sleep is surprisingly temperature sensitive with one recent study having found that warmer-than-usual nights shortened sleep, mainly because people fell asleep later. Pictures: iStock

There are many traditional reasons for a bad night’s sleep. A snoring partner. A dog doing a full-body starfish impression across the bed. The neighbour’s car alarm at 3am. Or, my personal favourite, your brain suddenly deciding to replay a mildly embarrassing conversation from 2008. But science suggests we may now add another culprit to the list: climate change.

Not in a dramatic, “the planet has personally cancelled your REM cycle” sort of way. More in a quieter, sweatier, scientifically measurable way where warmer nights can make it harder to fall asleep, stay asleep and wake feeling as though you have not spent the night wrestling a radiator. Something, we all experienced this June. This matters because sleep is surprisingly temperature sensitive. As evening arrives, our bodies naturally begin to cool. That drop in core temperature is part of the machinery that helps us nod off. Instead of drifting peacefully into sleep, we begin the ancient summer ritual: flip the pillow, kick off the duvet, pull it back on, open the window, close it because of one determined fly, and briefly consider whether sleeping in the fridge is medically advisable.