Seasonal variation in sleep architecture
2023
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
While short-term effects of artificial light on human sleep are increasingly being studied, reports on long-term effects induced by season are scarce. Assessments of subjective sleep length over the year suggest a substantially longer sleep period during winter. This retrospective study aimed to investigate seasonal variation in objective sleep measures in a cohort of patients living in an urban environment. A three-night polysomnography was performed on 188 patients with neuropsychiatric sleep disturbances. Measures of the diagnostic second nights were averaged per month and analysed over the year. Analyses showed seasonal changes in total sleep time, REM-sleep latency, REM-sleep duration, and slow-wave-sleep duration. Data suggest seasonal variation in sleep architecture even when living in an urban environment in patients with disturbed sleep. If replicated in a healthy population, this would provide first evidence for a need to adjust sleep habits to season.
Seasonality of human sleep: Polysomnographic data of a neuropsychiatric sleep clinic
Dieter Kunz
Added on: 05-02-2023
[1] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2023.1105233/full?utm_source=fweb&utm_medium=nblog&utm_campaign=ba-sci-fnins-more-REM-sleep-winter[2] https://blog.frontiersin.org/2023/02/17/humans-dont-hibernate-but-we-still-need-more-winter-sleep/
