If you get enough sleep but do not feel refreshed in the morning, it may be necessary to examine your bedroom environment. A study found that the brighter, hotter, and noisier a bedroom is, the lower the quality of sleep.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University analyzed sleep data from 372 young adults with an average age of 22 who participated in the young adult sleep study of the Future Families Study. For 14 days, participants recorded every morning whether the brightness, noise, and temperature in their bedrooms had disrupted their sleep. At the same time, wrist-worn sensors measured when they fell asleep and woke up, their actual sleep duration, the time it took them to fall asleep, and the amount of time they remained awake during the night.
The analysis showed that on days when participants felt their bedrooms were too bright, they took longer to fall asleep and had lower sleep quality. The amount of time they remained awake during the night also increased. Sleep quality was also lower on days when participants felt their bedrooms were too hot or noisy. Noise and heat affected not only participants' subjective assessments of sleep quality but also sleep measures recorded by the wrist sensors.
By contrast, when participants felt their bedrooms were too cold, no clear changes appeared in the sleep measures. In addition, the brightness, noise, and temperature of the bedroom were not clearly associated with total sleep duration. Orfeu Buxton, a professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health at Pennsylvania State University and a co-author of the study, said, "Noise causes the brain to continue monitoring its surroundings even while a person is asleep. In particular, sounds that may be perceived as threats can trigger the brain's vigilance response even during sleep."
This study examined how participants perceived their bedroom environments rather than objective temperature or noise levels. The same sound or temperature may disrupt sleep to different degrees depending on the individual. The researchers explained that it is necessary to reduce factors that disrupt sleep even in places such as dormitories or apartments, where it is difficult to freely control the bedroom environment.
The researchers suggested using earplugs to reduce noise and sleep masks or blackout curtains to block light. However, because this was an observational study, it did not confirm whether changing the bedroom environment actually improves sleep quality.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State University analyzed sleep data from 372 young adults with an average age of 22 who participated in the young adult sleep study of the Future Families Study. For 14 days, participants recorded every morning whether the brightness, noise, and temperature in their bedrooms had disrupted their sleep. At the same time, wrist-worn sensors measured when they fell asleep and woke up, their actual sleep duration, the time it took them to fall asleep, and the amount of time they remained awake during the night.
The analysis showed that on days when participants felt their bedrooms were too bright, they took longer to fall asleep and had lower sleep quality. The amount of time they remained awake during the night also increased. Sleep quality was also lower on days when participants felt their bedrooms were too hot or noisy. Noise and heat affected not only participants' subjective assessments of sleep quality but also sleep measures recorded by the wrist sensors.
By contrast, when participants felt their bedrooms were too cold, no clear changes appeared in the sleep measures. In addition, the brightness, noise, and temperature of the bedroom were not clearly associated with total sleep duration. Orfeu Buxton, a professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health at Pennsylvania State University and a co-author of the study, said, "Noise causes the brain to continue monitoring its surroundings even while a person is asleep. In particular, sounds that may be perceived as threats can trigger the brain's vigilance response even during sleep."
This study examined how participants perceived their bedroom environments rather than objective temperature or noise levels. The same sound or temperature may disrupt sleep to different degrees depending on the individual. The researchers explained that it is necessary to reduce factors that disrupt sleep even in places such as dormitories or apartments, where it is difficult to freely control the bedroom environment.
The researchers suggested using earplugs to reduce noise and sleep masks or blackout curtains to block light. However, because this was an observational study, it did not confirm whether changing the bedroom environment actually improves sleep quality.
The findings were recently published in the international journal Sleep Health.