Smoking at night may affect sleep hygiene, claims study

Insomnia is a clinically verified nicotine withdrawal symptom. As nicotine is a CNS stimulant, it is plausible that smoking at night could disturb sleep more than smoking at earlier times of the day, but this remains empirically unclear. For this purpose, Alicia Nuñez et al, conducted a study to examine the smoking status and its associations with insomnia severity and sleep duration while considering the potential role of smoking time.

"While many people smoke to relax, nicotine is a stimulant. For this reason, people who smoke - especially at night - have worse insomnia and are more likely to get insufficient amounts of sleep," said Dr Michael Grandner of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.

The researchers analyzed data from the Sleep and Healthy Activity Diet Environment and Socialization study, which included 1,007 adults (n nonsmokers = 818; n smokers = 189) between ages 22-60 in Philadelphia from 2012 to 2014. Researchers assessed Insomnia with the Insomnia Severity Index and categorized as none, mild, and moderate-to-severe and assessed Sleep duration with one item from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and categorized as very short, short, normal, and long.

After analyzing both the groups (non-smokers and smokers) researchers found participants in the smoking group experienced an increased rate of insomnia when compared with nonsmokers. They also found Smoking was also associated with 3.3-fold higher odds of a "very short" sleep duration of four hours or less, also a significant risk increase, as well as a higher risk of "short" sleep duration of five or six hours.These findings suggest that night-time smoking have a significantly associated with insomnia and shorter sleep duration.

The authors concluded, "Findings provide evidence that smoking is associated with increased insomnia severity and shorter sleep duration, particularly nightly smoking. Sleep health should be considered in smoking cessation efforts".

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2020.10.006