As more people work from home and commutes are eliminated, there might be more time to sleep, but then why is it still common to feel downright drained? The Washington Post looks to answer this question in a recent report.
If you theoretically have more hours to spend sleeping but “are experiencing sleep difficulty, it’s absolutely logical,” says Rebecca Robbins, a postdoctoral fellow and sleep researcher at Harvard Medical School. Though you might be working from home or be in a low-risk category, “the worry of being impacted can loom larger than life on your sleep and mental bandwidth.” The uncertainty of the pandemic, concern for others and ourselves, and the utter lack of control is a perfect storm for insomnia and sleep difficulty, Robbins says.
A study out of Wuhan, China, involving 3,637 participants who were covid-19 free found that the prevalence of insomnia increased significantly along with worsened insomnia symptoms during the outbreak. The main causes included anxiety, depressive symptoms and fear of getting infected, but also economic-related stress, difficulty handling social distance restrictions and changes in daily life.
