What Affects Sleep?

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Several factors—many of which you can control—affect the quality of sleep you get each night.

  • man sleeping peacefully in bedChronic stress can keep you up at night, worrying over problems, deadlines, and frustrations.

  • In addition, your environment—including the amount of light you are exposed to each day, how secure and safe you feel in the area where you sleep, and how comfortable your bed is—can have a powerful effect on your sleep.

  • A new study suggests that your relationships affect your sleep more than you know as well. Feeling irritable or angry with a loved one, particularly a family member, can keep you up at night.

  • What foods you eat, including products containing caffeine or alcohol, can disrupt sleeping patterns.

  • Chronic medical conditions, such as liver disease, heart failure, arthritis, Parkinson's, and cancer, can all change your sleep.

Learn more

Title screen for Sleep and Wellbeing webinar

Sleep and Wellbeing

Learn why sleep is so important and strategies to enhance your sleep with Dr. Michael Howell, Department of Neurology at the University of Minnesota, and Director of the Sleep Performance Training Institute.

http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/science/how/external-factors

Ailshire, J.A, Burgard, S.A. (2012).Family relationships and troubled sleep among U.S. adults: examining the influences of contact frequency and relationship quality. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 53(2) 248–262.

De Cruz, S., Espiritu, J.R., Zeidler, M., Wang, T.S. (2012). Sleep disorders in chronic liver disease. Seminars in Repiratory and Critical Care Medicine; 33(1):26-35.

Irwin, M.R., Olmstead, R., Carrillo, C., Sadeghi, N., Fitzgerald, J.D., Ranganath, V.K., Nicassio, P.M. (2012). Sleep loss exacerbates fatigue, depression, and pain in rheumatoid arthritis. Sleep;35(4):537-43.

Najafi, M.R., Chitsaz, A., Askarian, Z., Najafi, M.A. (2013). Quality of sleep in patients with Parkinson's disease. International Journal of Preventative Medicine;4(Suppl 2):S229-33.