Researchers are investigating sleep during the pandemic

—The quality of sleep in a population has a huge impact on a country's economy. In addition, there is a very strong link between how we sleep and our health, for example how the immune system can counteract infections, says Jonathan Cedernaes, sleep scientist at Uppsala University and Northwestern University USA.

See him tell us about factors that affect sleep during the pandemic in the clip above.

The new web survey (click the link to see it) is about sleep, diet, exercise and mental health during the pandemic. It is open to anyone and the sample is not randomly or statistically selected to represent the entire population, so no certain conclusions for all Swedes will not be drawn.

Within two weeks, researchers hope to have received at least 600 Swedes to respond to the form. The same survey is now also being conducted in Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, China, Norway, Poland, the UK, Germany and Austria. The results will be published in August / September after review in a scientific journal according to Cedernaes.

Previous research gives a split picture of how people's sleeping habits were affected during the pandemic. A study in February from China of 14500 people, where many people were isolated due to suspected infection, reported a poorer quality of sleep (self-reported) as well as with the health care staff working with the disease. Another Chinese study of the population at large also indicated that sleep problems increased during the covid-19 outbreak due to concern.

In a web survey from Germany, Switzerland and Austria in March-April of 435 people, the result was that people said they slept longer and had more regular times for bedtime between weekdays and weekends, but that the quality was still a little worse than before the pandemic.

However, an American study showed that sleep improved during Covid-19. There were 139 university students who answered a survey in April. The distance studies made sleeping times more regular and the students slept on average half an hour longer per night than before Covid-19.

There are also reports on social media that people are dreaming more now. Under the hashtag #pandemicdreams, Twitter users tell us about a strange and colorful dream world, paired with stressful nightmares of forgetting their mouthguards. National Geopgraphic cites an ongoing study in Lyon shows that 35 percent remember more dreams when they wake up than usual and 15 percent said they dreamed more nightmares. Another ongoing study from the Italian Sleep Medicine Society also suggests that nightmares and sleep disorders have increased to the same extent as people with post-traumatic stress disorder.