Sleep and Weather: Are They Linked?

We all love our sleep, and anyone who has tried to pull a reluctant teenager out of bed knows that some love it more than others. However, are sleep and weather linked?

The weather plays a vital part in all our lives; we love it, moan about it, and sometimes we loathe it. When it comes to sleep, though, weather has a major effect on our bodies.

To get a comfortable night's sleep, you need to be, well, comfortable. That means not too hot, too cold, or too sticky. You know that horrible sticky feeling when you're in bed and can't cool down. If you don't know that feeling, you're a very lucky person. Anyway, humidity, heat, and cold all affect our ability to sleep. It's a comfort thing.

Now, sleep and weather are definitely linked in a way. Don't forget, the human body needs sunlight to function as sunlight helps to create vitamin D. During cloudier days, your mood will lower a little, and during the winter months in the more northerly latitudes, your mood will lower in general. This is because the same action that produces vitamin D also helps regulate melatonin, which is vital for a good night's sleep.
So if sunlight can affect sleep and humidity can affect sleep, what else can?

When you're aware of a potential natural disaster, such as a large destructive storm heading your way, are you going to be a little less inclined to sleep? Of course you are. There's nothing like a Category Five hurricane to make people a little nervous. However, low or high barometric pressure has no affect on sleep. If you think about it, if you live halfway up a mountain, you're going to sleep as well as someone who is lower down, even though there is more pressure in the valleys. So sleep and natural disasters don't go particularly well together, unless you're one of the unlucky ones caught in Pompeii in 79AD. Volcano eruptions usually make the folks nearby a little antsy.

So, we've done sleep and barometric pressure and sleep and natural weather patterns, so all we need to look at is sleep and other influences.

As we all know, sleep is a complex business. It takes lots of different factors to create the perfect night's sleep, and often, two people may have two entirely different likes and dislikes. Some people cannot fall asleep when it's hailing, as there is too much noise. High levels of light distract others, so midsummer is not ideal for those folks. Heat and cold are two distractions that can usually be easily regulated, but set the temperature a little lower than you would normally like if you have trouble sleeping, as you can warm up the bed and keep your optimal temperature to a comfortable level. Sleep and weather are but two small factors in the great mystery that is sleep. Sweet dreams!