Scientists from Fribourg have investigated the question of why people often have difficulty sleeping the first night in an unfamiliar place. Increased alertness seems to be the cause, but individual and environmental aspects also have an influence.
Many people have trouble sleeping well the first night away from home, a phenomenon called the “first night effect” (FNE). In this study, Professor Björn Rasch and his team at the University of Freiburg examined what happens when you return to the same place a week later.
Brain activity scrutinized
The work involved two separate studies with healthy young adults. In the first, 45 people slept in the Unifr sleep lab for two nights separated by a week. In the second, 30 people spent two nights in the lab (with a week’s interval in between), then two nights at home (again with a week’s interval in between).
The team used a mobile electroencephalogram to monitor brain activity and asked participants to complete a questionnaire each morning about their sleep quality. The results reveal that FNE also occurs when nights are not consecutive, Unifr said in a statement on Thursday.
Thus, participants slept less well overall the first night, whether at home or in the lab. A week later, sleep quality had improved, but it was generally better at home than in the lab.
Individual traits
A new theory states that one hemisphere of the brain sleeps less deeply than the other during the first night, in order to remain more alert to potential dangers.
Nevertheless, this study showed that asymmetric sleep patterns are repeated every night, not just at the time of FNE, and that they are not affected by the familiarity of the environment. This observation therefore suggests that fragmented sleep may be more due to individual traits.
The research team concluded that sleep quality could be impaired both by an unfamiliar environment (such as a new room, a different bed, unusual noises) and by the situation (being connected to a recording device, for example). This is why
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