Your Dog May Be Losing Sleep Because of You, New Study Suggests
· Vice
Nothing beats your dog snuggling up with you in bed at night. Maybe you don’t let them in because you fear their midnight movements or heavy breathing will ruin your sleep. But a recent study in PLOS One by researchers at the University of Toronto and Duke University suggests you’re more likely ruining their sleep.
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Researchers strapped fitness trackers onto 25 humans and 38 huskies and malamutes over four weeks to measure who tossed and turned the most—dogs or their human bedmates. When a human and their pooch stirred in unison, the tracking data showed the person moved first 45 percent of the time.
Dogs kicked off the disruption only 18 percent of the time. We humans are the fidgety sleep disruptors.
Researchers Tracked Dogs and Their Sleeping Owners. The Humans Moved First More Often.
What’s funny is that while about half of the participants complained in surveys that their pets ruined their sleep, especially the ones with multiple dogs, the sensor data showed them to be the ones disrupting their dogs first, as objective measures like total sleep time and overall sleep efficiency were totally unaffected regardless of whether a dog slept on the bed, on the floor, or across the room.
Dogs actually serve as natural “zeitgebers,” biological anchors that force humans into consistent bedtime routines. While your French bulldog with sleep apnea or pony-sized Great Dane bed hog can pose their own bedtime challenges if they want to snuggle with you, the science says you should stop blaming them for your sleepless nights, and maybe start wondering if they’re blaming you for theirs.
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