Why Bristol’s Energy Can Drain Yours
The Problem
Bristol is vibrant, fast-paced, full of life, and honestly, a pretty good place to live! From early morning commuters cycling the Suspension Bridge to late-night gigs on Gloucester Road, the city always feels busy. This gets amplified when the academic year is in full swing and the two Universities are filled with students. Unfortunately, this constant movement can quietly erode one crucial pillar of your health: sleep. Whether you're a builder working long shifts near Temple Meads, a student powering through coursework in Clifton, or a gym-goer chasing new PBs at 06:00 before work, there's one thing we all share; a body that won’t perform without proper rest. And here’s the kicker: even when you’re doing everything else right — training hard, eating clean, or getting outside, poor sleep can completely wreck your efforts.
The Science
Realistically, living in a city can affect your circadian rhythm and therefore, your recovery. The constant noise, light pollution, and air pollution can greatly affect your ability to drift off, stay asleep, and wake up feeling well rested. According to Hunter and Hayden (2019), even walkability, built-up environment, green space, safety, and social characteristics such as neighbourhood disorder and the trust you hold for your neighbours can dramatically impact your sleep!
Noise and Air Pollution
Lets say you live right next to a busy area of Bristol like Gloucester Road or Park Street; the noise pollution from road traffic completely throw off your sleep stages and lead to sleepier mornings (Hunter and Hayden, 2019). Going even further, the air pollution cities bring can increase the temperature of your sleeping environment , possibly leading to respiratory disturbances.
Light Pollution
Some limited evidence suggests that the ambient light a city gives off may also impact your sleep. The exposure of artificial light during sleep can increase your overall wake time after you fall asleep along with disrupting your deep sleep stages (Cho et al., 2016).
Structural Environment
Physical disorder (e.g. litter, graffiti, abandoned buildings, cars, and building maintenance) is another contributor to sleep disturbances within a city. DeSantis et al., (2013) found that a highly rated neighbourhood disorder score was associated with 20 minutes less sleep per night on average, which is a pretty substantial amount!
Neighbourhood Social Environment
This is an interesting one. According to Hunter and Hayden (2019), social cohesion, meaning the feeling of belonging to an area, trusting neighbours, and friendly neighbours, lead to better sleep. Shorter self-reported sleep was substantially more common in neighbourhoods with low social cohesion. Bassett et al. (2014) also identified that trusting neighbours led to less restless sleep for women specifically. So I hope you have nice neighbours!
The Solution
Well, as you read above, there’s so many factors at play here and there are simply some things that you can’t control if you live in a city such as the physical disorder or the neighbours you have. So what can you control?
Noise Pollution
In an attempt to block out the sound of cars and people walking down the street, background sounds such as ambient music or coloured sounds (white noise, brown noise, pink nose etc.) can greatly enhance your sleep (Capezuti et al., 2022).
Air Pollution
While not necessary depending on where you live, an air filter might be worth considering if you live in a highly polluted area as these have been shown to decrease the amounts of pollutants floating around your house or room (Lamport et al., 2023)
Light Pollution
This one is relatively easy to mitigate as you can simply wear an eye mask if needed or invest in some blackout blinds to ensure no light reaches your eyes while you sleep (hunter and Hayden, 2019)
Bonus: Room Temperature
Interestingly, humans as a whole sleep best at around 18° Celsius! When the room temperature delves to far in either direction, you can find it quite hard to fall asleep, which is why in the summer when it’s super hot outside, you may find it difficult to drift off and remain asleep throughout the night (Harding, Franks, and Wisden, 2019).
I hope you found this little blog post interesting and if you have any questions, feel free to pop them below!
If you want help building better habits, hitting PBs, and changing your life then work with me, the only fitness and performance specialist around, in Clifton, Bristol.
I hope you all have a great rest of your day and stay strong and healthy!
Esse Fortis Et Sanus
Citations
BASSETT, E. and S. MOORE, 2014. Neighbourhood disadvantage, network capital and restless sleep: Is the association moderated by gender in urban-dwelling adults? Social science & medicine (1982), 108, 185–193
CAPEZUTI, E. et al., 2022. Systematic review: auditory stimulation and sleep. Journal of clinical sleep medicine, 18(6), 1697–1709
CHO, C. et al., 2016. Exposure to dim artificial light at night increases REM sleep and awakenings in humans. Chronobiology International, 33(1), 117–123
DESANTIS, A.S. et al., 2013. Associations of Neighborhood Characteristics with Sleep Timing and Quality: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. Sleep (New York, N.Y.), 36(10), 1543–1551
HARDING, E.C., N.P. FRANKS and W. WISDEN, 2019. The Temperature Dependence of Sleep. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 13, 336
HUNTER, J.C. and K.M. HAYDEN, 2018. The association of sleep with neighborhood physical and social environment. Public health (London), 162, 126–134
LAMPORT, D.J. et al., 2023. Can air purification improve sleep quality? A 2‐week randomised‐controlled crossover pilot study in healthy adults. Journal of sleep research, 32(3), e13782–n/a