![]() Most of their diagnoses showed no seasonal pattern, but insomnia was more commonly diagnosed towards the end of the year.Įven though the patients were based in an urban environment with low natural light exposure and high light pollution, which should affect any seasonality regulated by light, the scientists found subtle but striking changes across the seasons. Once these exclusions had been made, 188 patients remained. The team excluded patients who were taking medications known to affect sleep, technical failures during the polysomnography, and REM sleep latency longer than 120 minutes, which suggested that the first REM sleep episode had been skipped. These studies are regularly carried out on patients who experience sleep-related difficulties, using a special laboratory where patients are asked to sleep naturally without an alarm clock, and the quality and type of sleep can be monitored as well as the length of sleep.Īlthough the sleep disorders could potentially affect the results, this makes for a large study group evenly spread throughout the year, allowing for the investigation of month-to-month differences. “In our study we show that human sleep architecture varies substantially across seasons in an adult population living in an urban environment.”Ī team of scientists led by Ms Aileen Seidler in Dr Kunz’s working group at the Charité Medical University of Berlin recruited 292 patients that had undergone sleep studies called polysomnographies at the St Hedwig Hospital. “Possibly one of the most precious achievements in human evolution is an almost invisibility of seasonality on the behavioral level,” said Dr Dieter Kunz, corresponding author of the study, based at the Clinic of Sleep & Chronomedicine at the St Hedwig Hospital, Berlin. Scientists studying sleep difficulties have now published data in Frontiers in Neuroscience that shows that, even in an urban population experiencing disrupted sleep, humans experience longer REM sleep in winter than summer and less deep sleep in autumn. Although studies where people assess their own sleep have suggested an increase in sleep duration during winter, objective measures are needed to determine how exactly the seasons affect sleep. But figuring out how this applies in practice is difficult. ![]() Theoretically, changing day length and light exposure over the course of the year could affect the duration and quality of our sleep. Whether we’re night owls or morning larks, our body clocks are set by the sun. ![]() Summary: REM sleep is 30 minutes longer in Winter than in Summer for most people, a new study reveals. ![]()
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