https://time.com/7134431/climate-change-sleep-loss-heat-health/
Climate change is increasingly disrupting people’s sleep. High nighttime temperatures led to 5% more hours of sleep lost worldwide over the past five years compared to the period between 1986 and 2005, according to the latest edition of the Lancet’s study of climate and health. It marks the first time the prestigious medical journal has examined this metric. Sleep loss peaked in 2023, the hottest year on record, when there was a 6% rise.
The eighth annual Lancet Countdown on health and climate change report, authored by 122 global experts, found that high temperatures, drought and heavy rainfall are increasingly impacting people’s health. In 2023, a record 512 billion potential hours of labor were lost globally due to high temperatures. Heat-related deaths in people over the age of 65 reached the highest levels on record, 167% higher in the 1990s.
“This isn’t just about extreme weather events,” said Jeremy Farrar, chief scientist at the World Health Organization. “This is about every week, every month of the year, and the impact on all of our health.”
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Kevin Lomas, a professor of building simulation at Loughborough University who studies the relationship between heat and sleep, has found in the UK that bedroom temperatures higher than about 27C (80.6F) is the threshold at which people struggle to cool themselves down. “Once you start tinkering with how much sleep people get, then the consequences aren’t just relatively trivial things,” said Lomas, who wasn’t involved in the Lancet study. “They can be long term.”
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The study used historic sleep-tracking and temperature data to estimate the effects on sleep from high nighttime temperatures across different years. The biggest increases in lost sleep were in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.
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Also see
Bloomberg News: Climate Change Is Driving Sleep Loss as Nights Get Warmer – Rising temperatures, drought and heavy rainfall are increasingly impacting people’s health, according to a Lancet study.
