Why We May Need to Sleep More in Winter
On cold winter mornings it can be difficult to come out from under the blankets.
But according to researchers in Germany, there may be a reason why we find it hard to start our winter days.
No, it's not laziness — it could be because we need more sleep during the colder months.
A team of scientists studied the sleeping habits of almost 200 people.
During the study, the participants had been asked to go to sleep at the same time as usual, but they were told not to use alarms. Participants were tested for several days each month over a year.
The results showed that people got more REM sleep in winter than in spring — about 30 minutes more on average.
REM, which means rapid eye movement, is important for brain development and it's also when we dream.
There are different stages to our sleep, and REM usually starts 60 to 90 minutes after we go to sleep. However, we leave this stage several times, and most of our REM sleep actually happens in the second half of the night.
The body tries to get as much REM sleep as it needs — so if you're getting more, then it's for a good reason, say experts.
All those who took part in the German study had been suffering from sleep problems, and similar studies will need to be done on people who don't have problems sleeping, say the researchers.
However, they think their results might show it could be a good idea for us to change our sleeping habits at different times of year.
