by Dr Deborah Lee, Dr Fox Online Pharmacy
photo by xiangying_xu
It may not seem obvious, but your body needs more sleep in the winter, and here’s some reasons why –
Your body is working harder to keep warm
- When the air temperature is colder, your body is working harder to maintain your core temperature and support your metabolism. You burn more calories when working out in the winter than in the summer
Your immune system is working less well
- Your immune system works less efficiently in colder temperatures, making you more susceptible to colds, flu and other respiratory viruses. When you are unwell, you are likely to feel more tired and need to sleep more to aid recovery. One 2015 sleep study concluded that people who slept for less than 7 hours had a 4.5 times increased risk of contracting a respiratory virus.
You are doing less exercise
- When it’s cold, we all tend to exercise less outdoors. However, exercise stimulates the immune system, hence not exercising can make you feel sluggish and tired.
You are probably eating less fruit and vegetables
- In the winter months, we tend to eat less fresh fruit and vegetables. We tend to crave comfort foods in the cold, which are often high-carb and high-fat. Spikes in blood sugar levels can make us feel fatigued.
How much extra sleep do we have in the winter?
According to the Sleep Foundation, we have 1.75 -2.5 extra hours of sleep in the winter. This means an adult might sleep between 7-10 hours per night in the winter months. However, it’s not advisable to sleep for more than 10 hours a night as this can be harmful for health.
A 2023 study in the Journal of Frontiers in Neuroscience, has reported that humans tend to have around 30 minutes extra REM sleep in the winter. The significance of this is not known.
REM sleep is thought to be important for memory consolidation and dealing with emotions.
The dark mornings make it harder to wake up
In the winter, we are forced to get up when its pitch black outside. It is the onset of daylight that stops the production of melatonin and allows us to wake up. Waking up in the dark when melatonin levels are still high is difficult and we all find it harder to get out of bed.
Try going to bed earlier in the winter
If you notice increasing daytime sleepiness, lack of energy, or mood disturbance in the winter, this can be a sign of sleep deprivation, and you might like to try an earlier bedtime.
Most of us have to get up at a specific time to get to school or work, and cannot change our wake-up time. But we can change our bedtime. It makes sense in the winter to go to bed
earlier. How much earlier is up to you. I would suggest 30 minutes to one hour to start with.
Final thoughts
One way we can stay well this winter is to listen to our bodies and get enough sleep. Going to bed earlier is a simple thing we can do to help ourselves through these short, cold, dark days.
- I like the idea of going to bed early, do you?
