Abstract
Objective
Climate change and urbanization increasingly cause extreme conditions hazardous to
health. The bedroom environment plays a key role for high-quality sleep. Studies objectively
assessing multiple descriptors of the bedroom environment as well as sleep are scarce.
Methods
Particulate matter with a particle size <2.5 µm (PM2.5), temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide (CO2), barometric pressure, and noise levels were continuously measured for 14 consecutive
days in the bedroom of 62 participants (62.9% female, mean ± SD age: 47.7 ± 13.2 years)
who wore a wrist actigraph and completed daily morning surveys and sleep logs.
Results
In a hierarchical mixed effect model that included all environmental variables and
adjusted for elapsed sleep time and multiple demographic and behavioral variables,
sleep efficiency calculated for consecutive 1-hour periods decreased in a dose-dependent
manner with increasing levels of PM2.5, temperature, CO2, and noise. Sleep efficiency in the highest exposure quintiles was 3.2% (PM2.5, p < .05), 3.4% (temperature, p < .05), 4.0% (CO2, p < .01), and 4.7% (noise, p < .0001) lower compared to the lowest exposure quintiles (all p-values adjusted for multiple testing). Barometric pressure and humidity were not
associated with sleep efficiency. Bedroom humidity was associated with subjectively
assessed sleepiness and poor sleep quality (both p < .05), but otherwise environmental variables were not statistically significantly
associated with actigraphically assessed total sleep time and wake after sleep onset
or with subjectively assessed sleep onset latency, sleep quality, and sleepiness.
Assessments of bedroom comfort suggest subjective habituation irrespective of exposure
levels.
Conclusions
These findings add to a growing body of evidence highlighting the importance of the
bedroom environment—beyond the mattress—for high-quality sleep.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: April 17, 2023
Accepted:
February 27,
2023
Received in revised form:
February 20,
2023
Received:
June 8,
2022
Publication stage
In Press Corrected ProofIdentification
Copyright
© 2023 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
