Trouble sleeping? The Coronavirus Pandemic may have made it worse

Have you experienced problems sleeping since the coronavirus pandemic started? Were you awake in the middle of the night worrying and having a difficult time falling back asleep? Did you check google for “insomnia”? You were not alone. A new study by Zitting and colleagues published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine showed that people in the United States and all over the world googled “insomnia” a lot more than usual this past spring. In fact, there was an almost 60% increase in the number of google searches for insomnia during the first months of the coronavirus pandemic compared to previous years. Most of these searches occurred in the middle of the night or in the early morning hours (peaking around 3 AM). These results highlight how the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has affected people’s sleep health all over the world. You can find more about sleep and how you can improve your sleep at Brigham and Women’s Hospital Sleep Matters Initiative website: https://www.brighamandwomens.org/initiatives/sleep-matters/sleep-matters-initiative