Professor Clare Anderson writes in the Conversation about the ways the festive season affects our sleep
Christmas is supposed to be restful, yet somehow it ends up being one of the worst times of year for sleep. Between late nights, travel, one too many eggnogs and all that excitement, your sleep schedule doesn’t stand a chance – and neither does your mood, safety or health. Here are a dozen sneaky ways Christmas sabotages your sleep and what you can do about it.
Late nights and lie-ins might feel indulgent, but they’re secretly sabotaging your internal clock. Those late nights and bright lights throw your body clock out of sync, leaving you with disrupted sleep and making you slower to function and gloomier the next day. Irregular sleep timing is associated with many poor consequences for health and performance.
Many adults routinely sleep less than the recommended seven hours. Nightly sleep loss of even one hour quickly takes a major toll. Sleeping less than six hours a night can cause dangerous levels of sleepiness after just two weeks, making end of year exhaustion real, and the Christmas break an ideal time to catch up on lost sleep.
Those big festive meals, rich in carbs and fat, can be sedatives on a plate. When we’re short on sleep, we’re more likely to crave sugary or fatty quick fixes for energy – only to crash about 90 minutes later, when sleepiness hits again.
Christmas Eve excitement sends stress hormones soaring in kids (and let’s be honest, adults too), making it nearly impossible to drift off. Paradoxically, sleepy children often become hyper rather than drowsy – turning bedtime into a battle. When children stay up later, this results in parents staying up later. This doesn’t simply delay sleep, it also shortens it, reducing total sleep time by an average of 33 minutes for each hour that bedtime is delayed.
While others are celebrating, retail, healthcare and other essential workers are grinding through marathon shifts that wreak havoc on sleep. Shifts lasting longer than ten hours increase the risk of accident and injury by 13%, while those involving night work increase it by 28%. Put those together (long shifts overnight) and it’s a recipe for disaster. Sleeping during the day and being awake at night is already a challenge for many shift workers, but even more so at Christmas.
In all the Christmas excitement, it’s easy to forget how risky travel can be when you’re tired. Sleepiness contributes to around 17% of fatal vehicle accidents – and long journeys, international travel, reduced sleep and sleeping in unfamiliar environments all make things worse.
For those in the northern hemisphere, winter brings lower light levels during the day, yet bright Christmas displays light up the night sky – and our brain. Indoor lighting that is too dim during the day and too bright at night can disrupt circadian rhythms and sleep, making us feel more tired and less happy. While sleeping under Christmas lights may put you in the festive mood, it can disrupt your heart rate during sleep and affect your blood sugar in the morning.
Yes, alcohol helps you nod off faster, but then it sabotages your sleep by messing with your brain chemistry and making breathing problems worse. You won’t even remember these disruptions (you need to be awake for several minutes to form a memory), but you’ll definitely remember the hangover.
A Christmas Day nap can be a tradition for many families – especially grandpa. On average, people sleep about 5% more on Christmas Day. That extra 24 minutes of sleep over the holidays can help fight off common colds and other bugs. Christmas really is the time to indulge … in sleep.
Money worries, heightened expectations and increased loneliness can all trigger Christmas anxiety. When you’re anxious, there’s a 90% increased risk that you’ll struggle to fall or stay asleep – and poor sleep makes anxiety worse. Protecting your sleep and helping others protect theirs can help prevent this vicious circle.
New Year’s Eve is the worst night of the year for sleep – most people go to bed 90 minutes later than usual, and it shows. More traffic accidents than usual happen on New Year’s Day, so if you’re exhausted, skip anything that requires alertness.
If on the twelfth day of Christmas your wish is for a good night’s sleep and staying safe and well, here are some top tips:
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Professor of Sleep and Circadian Science
Professor Clare Anderson is a sleep and circadian scientist internationally recognized for her work on the role of sleep and circadian timing on brain and cognitive health.
