In this solo YouTube talk, Dr. Jameca Cooper explains how the COVID‑19 pandemic has disrupted sleep for many of her patients, coining the term “coronasomnia” to describe poor‑quality, insufficient sleep during the crisis. She outlines a range of pandemic‑related factors that impair sleep: blurred boundaries between work and home when working or learning remotely, the loss of downtime and routine, excessive screen time and Zoom fatigue (especially for students), financial strain from job loss or reduced hours, health‑related anxiety about contracting COVID‑19 or losing loved ones, and reduced exposure to sunlight leading to lower vitamin D and mood disturbances. She notes a minority of people are sleeping more due to eliminated commutes, which can also become problematic. Dr. Cooper concludes by promising future videos with practical sleep‑health tips and encourages viewers to subscribe.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Dr. Jameca Cooper, and today we're going to talk about the pandemic and sleep. Many of my patients complain about how the pandemic has impacted their sleep. Most of them say they sleep less. Most of them say that they have experienced more anxiety and and so the anxiety has caused them to not be able to sleep as well as they had prior to that. There are many different reasons why people are sleeping worse now during COVID-19, and we can talk about a few of those today. The first thing that I see with my patients is that they are experiencing what the research calls "coronasomnia," which is the inability to sleep in a restful way throughout the night. So not having good quality sleep is what we would call coronasomnia. So why are people experiencing this? Lots of different reasons. One is having to work from home means that you now don't have work environments to separate. So you used to be able to get in your car and go to work, and that is work. You deal with work, you leave that environment, come back to your house and now you're at home. So that's a bit of a separation that people could appreciate because now you can compartmentalize a little bit better. Now it's all blurred together, so now your home is your work environment, and for lots of people that makes it difficult to be able to turn off, um, or turn off your switch and, and know when it's time for your body to relax and to go to bed. The other thing that has contributed to the corona-somnia is the lack of downtime. So now, because individuals are working from home, they simply go from working, turning the meeting or the computer off, and now they're sitting in the same environment. And for some of us, it makes it difficult to know how your body should switch and react to now the home environment. So not having the downtime has been an issue. We could also throw in that students are suffering with this as well, because now many of them for the past 12 months have been forced to do virtual learning. So they're sitting at home all day, and for, for many students, 8 hours a day on the screen, on Zoom, looking at their peers and their teacher. And it's been very difficult because what we do know about attention spans is that they don't last very long, and they don't last especially long for students who are in elementary school, middle school, a little bit better when they get to high school. But sitting in front of a screen all day has been very difficult for students. So having to focus for long periods of time is difficult, and that can impact your sleep. Having to work all day on a Zoom has been difficult for people when they're used to being in an office environment where they're able to walk around and greet their neighbors, go to lunch, take a coffee break. All of that is different now because your lunch and your coffee break could be from your own home. Which could also be lots of distractions for you. So the corona-somnia could be caused by the no downtime, the change in the routine, and it could also be caused by the increase in screen time for many people. Other areas that can contribute to the pandemic and sleep problems would be financial stress. Many individuals have lost jobs during the pandemic, or they have had hours cut have had their work environment switch, and many of those things could also come with a change in their pay. So if you're having to deal with now COVID-19 in addition to making less money or making no money, that would definitely contribute to a higher level of, of sleep issues. Other areas that will contribute to sleep problems during the pandemic would be health stress. I see a great deal of individuals in my practice that suffer from health stress. So in other words, I'm afraid to go out into the world because I'm afraid to obtain COVID-19. I'm afraid to see my loved ones because many of them lead very socially active lifestyles and being around them could put me at risk. So lots of fears about getting COVID-19, and if they get COVID-19, if they're going to, to live with it. These are real fears that people have, but these fears could be compounded if you have loved ones who've also suffered from COVID-19 and have lost their lives. Another area that could contribute to pandemic and sleep problems would be the lack of sunlight. So if you're working from home or learning from home and not being able to go outside and experience the sunlight as much as you were previously, that will cause a lack of vitamin D. Vitamin D directly impacts our mood as well as our levels of sleep. So not getting enough sunlight would definitely make you have more issues trying to sleep and get a full night's rest. Another area that I've seen with only a few people would be people who have been able to experience more sleep. So if prior to COVID-19, you had a 1-hour commute each way to get to work and now you are working from home and have no commute, then you would now be able to sleep more. Again, I've seen very few people who have this problem because this would be a good problem to have. I think most people are suffering from the opposite, which is not getting enough sleep. But for some of those who are experiencing more sleep, this could be a problem as well, especially if you feel that you are sleeping too much. So today we've talked about lots of issues that will contribute to sleep issues during the pandemic. I will definitely cover more tips for Sleeping During the Pandemic later. Be sure to tune in and make sure you press subscribe.
