"Could Your Home Size and Morning Commute Be Sabotaging Your Sleep?"

THE SIZE of your home and the length of your commute to work could both affect your sleep, scientists warn – triggering debilitating insomnia.

Have you sacrificed space for the sake of a short morning commute, cramming your belongings into a tiny flat?

Lying awake at night? The SIZE of your home could be linked, Japanese researchers say The length of your commute could also play a role

Or do you grin and bear hours-long journeys to and from work so you can come back to a spacious house?

Either scenario could be ruining your sleep, Japanese researchers claim.

Insomnia means regularly having problems falling or staying asleep, lying awake at night or waking up several times a night.

It’s a common problem thought to affect around one in three people in the UK, at least at some point in their life.

A number of factors can cause insomnia – from outside noise and light, heat and lumpy mattresses, to stress, anxiety and depression.

Now, researchers from Osaka Metropolitan University say your living and working environments can also have an effect.

“Long commute times have been shown to negatively affect sleep,” they wrote in the Journal of Transport and Health .

“Long commuting times reduce sleep duration and increase the risk of health issues such as hypertension, stress, fatigue, and obesity, as well as mortality.

“In that case, would living closer to the workplace in central urban areas be more advantageous for sleep health?

“However, conversely, some studies have found that residing in housing near workplaces in urban areas is associated with poor sleep outcomes due to unfavourable living environments.”

Noise, light and air pollution in cities can all make snoozing through the night more difficult, studies have found, causing “symptoms of insomnia and daytime sleepiness”.

“In other words, both long commuting times associated with suburban living and environmental stressors associated with urban living are linked to poorer sleep health,” researchers said.

Researchers sought to further examine this connection.

Led by Professor Daisuke Matsushita at Osaka Metropolitan University’s Graduate School of Human Life and Ecology, they investigated whether commuting time and residence-size could predict insomnia and daytime sleepiness.

To do this, they asked 40 to 59-year-olds working in Tokyo, Japan, to answer questions about their commute times and the square footage of their living quarters.

“Our objectives were to determine which demographic and socioeconomic characteristics predict sleep outcomes and whether housing location and size independently predict sleep outcomes,” study authors wrote.

They wanted to answer the question: “What size home should one have for better sleep, and where should it be located?”

Survey respondents were divided into two groups based on their commuting time in the Tokyo metropolitan area: over 50 minutes on average, or 50 minutes or less.

This was calculated by taking into account participants’ mode of transportation and postal codes of their homes and workplaces.

Participants were also broken into two groups based on how much square footage they had at their disposal: either less than 92 square metres or more.

Researchers then assessed levels of daytime insomnia and sleepiness.

Data analysis showed that people facing longer commutes were more likely to have insomnia and daytime sleepiness.

The same was true for city-dwellers, as smaller housing size also predicted insomnia.

This doesn’t necessarily show that one causes the other.

Many factors could heighten people’s risk of insomnia, with commute times and home sizes perhaps being a nod to those.

“Diet, physical activity, work style, and family composition” may all play a role in whether someone develop’s insomnia.

“Higher household income was an independent predictor of lower odds of insomnia and daytime sleepiness,” researchers noted.

It should also be noted that the study used self-reported data, which is less reliable, and didn’t cover a long period of time.

“The observed relationships offer meaningful insights into the potential influence of commuting time and residential floor area on sleep health indicators,” researchers said.

But they warned: “These findings should be interpreted with caution, especially in terms of their practical implications.”

Researchers concluded: “Shorter-than-average commuting times and residential floor areas exceeding the standard may predict lower risks of insomnia symptoms and daytime sleepiness.

“Reducing not only commuting time but also optimising housing location and size trade-offs may help mitigate commuter insomnia.”