Sleep Changes during COVID-19: A Study with Sleep Recording App Users

Abstract

It is reported that sleep has been disturbed during COVID-19. However, infection control through voluntary activity is different between Japan and overseas (i.e., stay-at-home request vs. lockdown). In addition, previous studies have only investigated the impact after the outbreak of COVID-19; therefore, no studies comparing sleep disturbances both before and after the pandemic exist. The present study aimed to examine sleep changes during COVID-19 using data from 6,963 sleep recording app users by comparing their sleep conditions from January to June 2020 with sleep data from the same period in 2018 and 2019. The results of the log-linear model showed that the proportion of individuals who slept less than 6 hours in April, May, and June 2020 was significantly lower than in other years. Sleep latency, wake after sleep onset, and sleep efficiency did not improve or worsen in 2020. These findings suggest that infection control through voluntary activity restrictions leads to an increase in sleep duration in Japan.