Swelteringly hot temperatures. Hastily rising sea levels. Excessive droughts in the western U.S.
Scientists agree climate change is affecting our world’s environment, but now they’ve discovered it may also affect our sleep.
In a study published May 20 in the journal One Earth, findings suggest that by the year 2099, altered temperatures may erode 50 to 58 hours of sleep per person per year.
It says increasing temperatures negatively impact human sleep around the globe, and found that the temperature effect on sleep loss is much larger for people with lower income as well as older adults and females.
To conduct the research, investigators used sleep data collected from accelerometer-based sleep-tracking wristbands. The data included seven million nightly sleep records from more than 47,000 adults across 68 countries spanning all continents except for Antarctica. Measures from the type of wristbands used in this study had previously been shown to align with independent measures of wakefulness and sleep.
The study found that on very warm nights (higher than 86 degrees Fahrenheit), sleep declines an average of just over 14 minutes. The likelihood of getting less than seven hours of sleep also increases as temperatures rise.
Access to air conditioning is one obvious factor that’s going to challenge this research and call for further studies, however, mattress retailers can use this information now to bring up the all-important topic of sleep.
It would take a colossal coordinated effort to halt climate change, but you can do your part by helping educate consumers on the effects of climate change, explain how this study connects sleep and climate change, and then go into why sleep is so critical.
This also gives you something to talk about with a consumer when trying to build a relationship during the sale.
The more you know and can share with a customer, the more likely they are going to be to trust you and eventually buy a mattress from you.
Even further, think of the global population of the future. How are they going to sleep? How are they going to be able to be their best when they are
Those are questions you can ask older customers to get them thinking about the next generation and what their lives might be like if climate change continues.
Everything a mattress retailer does should be focused on sleep and why we need it. And since they can’t stop climate change or its potential effects, they can instill the importance of sleep in this generation so that this knowledge will live on.
