Most of us know we need a dark and quiet bedroom for a good night’s sleep. But there’s one factor we often forget about: air quality.
Air quality makes a difference to your sleep, and therefore a difference to your overall health and energy. But getting your air right can be tricky.
Air quality can be worse at night, air pollutants like wildfires are becoming more common, and we’re particularly vulnerable to poor air quality while sleeping.
That doesn’t mean you should give up on good sleep, though.
Below, we dive into the key things you need to know about air quality and sleep, and how you can improve both. Plus, we’ll share how the RISE app can help you sleep better and get more energy, whatever quality of air you’re breathing.
“There’s still a lot we don’t know about air quality and sleep. From the studies that have been done, we know poor air quality can make it harder to fall asleep, wake you up in the night, and may cause breathing problems that disrupt your sleep,” says Dr. Chester Wu, who is double board certified in Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine, and provides sleep medicine services, medication management, and psychotherapy to adults at his private sleep medicine and psychiatry practice.
Yes, air quality affects sleep, and that includes both indoor and outdoor air quality. Poor air quality can increase the time it takes you to fall asleep, cause you to wake up more often in the middle of the night, reduce your deep sleep, and cause breathing problems, sleep disorders, and stress, which can further disrupt sleep.
Despite a lack of significant research into the link between air quality and sleep, we do know the negative impacts can be wide-ranging.
One shows that long-term exposure to outdoor pollution caused by traffic may be associated with shorter sleep duration. Another found sleep efficiency — the measure of how long you spend sleeping while in bed — may be reduced when there are short-term elevations in particulate matter, which are tiny particles in the air.
And another found that when children in Peru slept with less air pollution from cooking stoves in their homes, they fell asleep more easily and symptoms like a sore throat and morning headache improved.
Research shows pollutants in the air can inflame your airways, leading to respiratory problems and potentially worsening obstructive sleep apnea. And a found an overall adverse effect of pollutants on sleep health, including some studies that have found increased sleep-disordered breathing, including snoring and sleep apnea. However, there are mixed studies and a definitive correlation remains uncertain.
There are several air pollutants that can negatively impact your sleep.
Particulate matter are fine particles in the air. They’re often referred to as PM2.5 or PM10, which stands for particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 microns or 10 microns or less.
These tiny particles can get deep into your respiratory system and bloodstream, causing irritation, inflammation, and shortness of breath. When these symptoms hit, you may find it harder to fall and stay asleep.
And if you already have breathing issues, like asthma, your condition may be aggravated further — which won’t help your sleep.
It’s not just particles in the air that can ruin your sleep. Gasses in the air can also have an effect.
High levels of carbon dioxide, which can happen when you sleep with the doors and windows closed, can make a difference to how well you sleep at night.
A tracked participants’ sleep with both wearable sensors and questionnaires. It found higher carbon dioxide levels were linked to less deep sleep. Deep sleep was reduced by 4.3% for every 100 parts per million (ppm) increase in mean carbon dioxide concentration.
And another , also from 2020, found higher carbon dioxide levels were linked to longer sleep latencies (taking longer to fall asleep).
A tracked the sleep of 62 participants over the course of two weeks. It found higher levels of air pollution in their bedrooms, carbon dioxide, noise, and temperature were all linked independently to lower sleep efficiency.
For air quality in particular, high carbon dioxide was linked to a 4% decline in sleep efficiency compared to low carbon dioxide. This was more disruptive than temperature, which caused a 3.4% decline. High particulate matter caused a 3.2% decline compared to low particulate matter exposure.
And a looked at how indoor air quality affected the sleep of students. The results showed that poor perceived sleep quality was linked to higher carbon dioxide levels while sleeping.
The link goes both ways, too. One found lower levels of carbon dioxide were linked to better sleep quality and improved next-day mental performance and energy levels.
Carbon dioxide isn’t the only gas causing sleep problems, though. Exposure to high levels of nitrogen dioxide may also be linked to sleep-disordered breathing and an increased risk of sleep apnea.
If your air is clogged with pollen, dust, or pet dander, you may also suffer from allergies. This can lead to symptoms like a stuffy nose, sneezing, and wheezing — which won’t make sleeping any easier.
And shows those who suffer from allergic rhinitis (cold-like symptoms from allergies) have trouble falling asleep, wake up often, snore, and have lower self-reported sleep quality.
If you’ve got , cockroaches, cats, dogs, and fungal contaminations can make it worse. And dust mites can increase your odds of developing asthma in the first place.
Allergens in the air can also lead to nasal congestion and mouth breathing, and mouth breathing can lead to everything from bad breath and low energy to brain fog and high blood pressure.
Air quality may also indirectly affect your sleep. If you’re worried about it — which you probably are if you’re reading this article — this worry can keep you up at night and cause sleep problems like insomnia.
RISE users say stress and anxiety are the biggest factors stopping them from getting a good night’s sleep. You could be stressed about wildfires and smokey air, the health impacts of poor air quality if you’re sensitive to it (and even if you’re not), or simply be getting anxious reading the many news stories out there about worsening air quality.
We know poor air quality doesn’t bode well for good sleep health. But more research is needed to fully understand the link and to find the best way to protect our quality of life.
This is especially important as global warming and wildfires become more of a problem and air quality becomes a greater public health concern.
Poor air quality can be even more dangerous for children, pregnant women, older adults, and those with asthma, diabetes, or heart conditions. But even for those of us who aren’t vulnerable, worsening air quality can start impacting our sleep, which impacts everything else: our energy, our physical health, and our mental well-being.
So far, studies on air quality and sleep are hard to compare as they vary in geographic location, season, type of home, and ventilation — just to name a few factors. And measuring air quality during sleep is tricky as instruments can make noise, which can disrupt sleep, or participants know if a window or door is open or not, affecting results.
Plus, some studies measure subjective sleep quality, which can vary from person to person, and there’s no one definition of yet.
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Air quality can be worse in your bedroom compared to elsewhere in your home for several reasons.
Firstly, you spend long periods of time in your bedroom. During the day, you’re probably moving around between rooms in your house, your office, outside, and other places. At night, you’re mainly exposed to the air in your bedroom.
Even if your exposure to pollutants is low, you (hopefully) spend about eight hours sleeping in your bedroom. That’s about a third of your life. This means low levels of pollutants can still affect your health, energy, and performance as you’re spending more time breathing them in.
Secondly, your bedroom is probably not well-ventilated. Most of us close our bedroom door while sleeping and we may keep our windows closed if it’s cold or noisy outside. But this decreases ventilation, which can increase carbon dioxide levels and trap allergens inside.
Thirdly, there are air pollutants in your bedroom that you won’t find elsewhere. Your mattress, pillows, and bedding collect dust and dust mites, and may emit chemicals that can affect your health. If you light a candle before bed, this too can decrease your bedroom air quality.
And while not strictly in your bedroom, you may have just cooked, before bed, which can decrease air quality in your home.
Finally, outside air quality can be worse at night. The air is cooler, so there’s less movement. With less wind, pollutants hover and settle near the ground. And some plant species release more pollen at night, meaning your allergies can be worse at night. If you sleep with your windows open, this can cause your indoor air quality to get worse at night, too.
And it’s worse if you’re a smoker. shows even when smokers smoke outdoors, they’re still exposed to more air pollution in their bedrooms. This is because smokers exhale pollutants from their lungs. Smokers’ bedrooms were found to have higher levels of carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, and particulate matter than non-smokers.
Improve air quality in your bedroom by opening or closing windows (depending on the quality of the air outside), using an air filter, and reducing the build-up of allergens as much as you can.
Here’s what to do.
Heads-up: You can check outdoor air quality on . It’ll give you the air quality index (AQI) in your area. AQI is measured on a scale from 0 to 500. Scores below 50 indicate good air quality, whereas anything above 300 poses a health threat to everyone — even those of us usually not vulnerable to air pollution.
There’s only so much you can control when it comes to air quality. Perhaps there’s a wildfire, you live in a smoggy city, or you live with a smoker. Do what you can to improve your air quality, and focus on improving your sleep hygiene to get better sleep, no matter what you’re breathing.
Sleep hygiene is the name for the daily habits you can do to help you fall and stay asleep more easily. With good sleep hygiene, you can make sure nothing else gets in the way of good sleep. Even if you consider your sleep hygiene pretty good already, worsening air quality means more and more of us need to pay more attention to our sleep habits.
One thing to be aware of with sleep hygiene is you may need to make some trade-offs when the air quality is poor and consider what disturbs your sleep the most.
Here’s what good sleep hygiene looks like:
To stay on top of your sleep hygiene each day, the RISE app can guide you through 20+ habits and tell you the best time to do each one to make them more effective.
RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can .
Expert tip: Focus on your sleep debt. Sleep debt is the running total of how much sleep you owe your body. It’s compared to your sleep need, the genetically determined amount of sleep you need.
For the best health, mental performance, and energy levels, you want your overall sleep debt to be as low as possible. If poor air quality is making it hard to get enough sleep at night, try catching up on sleep with daytime naps. And focus on paying back sleep debt (by sleeping a little longer at night) when your air quality improves.
And check your sleep debt when making changes to see what helps and hurts your sleep the most. For example, you might find opening a window to improve air quality actually causes more sleep loss as it’s noisy where you live.
RISE can work out how much sleep debt you have. We recommend you keep this below five hours to feel your best each day.
But this tip isn’t just for when air quality is bad. Air quality can change fast. Wildfires, for example, are hard to forecast. Current technology can generally only predict a wildfire about a day out, meaning you can never really know when your air quality (and sleep) is about to take a hit.
Keeping your sleep debt low, even when air is good, means you’ll be able to better manage any sleep disruption that comes your way if air quality suddenly declines.
RISE can also tell you how much sleep you individually need. And no, it’s not just eight hours for everyone. Among 1.95 million RISE users aged 24 and up, sleep needs ranged from five hours to 11 hours 30 minutes.
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RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can click and .
Poor air quality can make it harder to get the sleep you need to feel your best each day. But there are a few things you can do to improve the air quality in your bedroom. Try investing in an air purifier, opening your windows (if outdoor air quality is good), and cleaning your bedroom often to clear out allergens.
Whether you’re breathing good quality air or not, pay attention to your sleep hygiene. This can make it easier to fall and stay asleep.
The RISE app can guide you through 20+ sleep hygiene habits each day. RISE can also work out how much sleep debt you have and help you keep it low to keep your energy high.
Sleep hygiene can make a real difference — and fast. We’ve found 80% of users have better sleep within five days.
Yes, air quality affects sleep. Poor air quality can make it harder to fall asleep, stay asleep, and cause less deep sleep. It can also cause lower sleep quality, snoring, and sleep apnea. Better air quality, on the other hand, can help people fall asleep faster, have more energy, and perform better the next day.
Yes, poor air quality affects sleep. Poor air quality can make it harder to fall asleep, stay asleep, and cause less deep sleep. It can also cause lower sleep quality, snoring, and sleep apnea.
Fresh air can improve sleep if the air quality outside is good. Opening your bedroom windows can help to keep carbon dioxide levels lower. High carbon dioxide levels are linked to taking longer to fall asleep, less deep sleep, and lower sleep quality. However, if outdoor air quality is poor, opening your windows for fresh air may bring in particulate matter, wildfire smoke, and allergens. You may be better off keeping the windows closed and using an air filter in your bedroom.
If the air quality is bad outside, it may be safer to sleep with the windows closed. You could try sleeping with your bedroom door open, to ventilate the room, using an air filter to improve indoor air quality, and keeping cool with a fan or air conditioner.
Yes, bad air quality can make you tired. Sleepiness is a common symptom of inhaling bad-quality air. Poor air quality can also make it harder to get enough sleep, which will make you tired.
Indoor air quality can get worse at night as you may close all the windows and doors, causing poor ventilation; you may be exposed to pollutants in your bedroom from dust mites, pets, and chemicals in your mattress; and you may have just cooked and cleaned, which can cause air pollution. Outdoor air quality can also be worse at night, which will reduce your indoor quality if you sleep with your windows open.
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