Sleep and Alcohol Use Patterns During Federal Holidays and Daylight Saving Time Transitions in the United States

Summary & key facts

Researchers looked at data from a wrist-worn fitness device and app to see if U.S. public holidays and Daylight Saving Time changes affect how people sleep and whether they drink alcohol. They used about 10.4 million recorded sleep episodes and about 5.8 million survey answers from 24,250 U.S. users between May 2020 and May 2021. The study found that most holidays and their eves were linked with people sleeping a bit longer, going to bed and waking up later, having less consistent sleep timing, and reporting more alcohol use. The biggest example was New Year's Eve, when many people went to bed and woke up much later, had about 14% worse sleep consistency, and more than twice as many people said they drank alcohol. The authors say the results are interesting but may not apply to everyone because the sample was mostly men and the data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Key facts:

• The study used about 10.4 million sleep recordings and about 5.8 million survey responses from 24,250 U.S. users who used a wrist-worn biometric device between May 1, 2020 and May 1, 2021.
• The people in the dataset were mostly male — about 75% — and their average age was about 38 years.
• Most U.S. public holidays and the nights before them were linked with small increases in how long people slept.
• Holidays were also linked with later bedtimes and wake times, and with less consistent sleep timing from night to night.
• The nights of holidays often had higher reports of alcohol use across the group.
• New Year's Eve showed one of the largest changes: people went to bed about 1.5 hours later, woke about 1.3 hours later, had roughly 14% worse sleep consistency, and more than twice as many people reported drinking alcohol than on a typical day.
• Daylight Saving Time transitions also showed statistically significant changes in sleep and alcohol measures in this sample.
• The authors note an important limitation: the participants were a non-random, mostly male group who used a specific device, and the data were collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, so the findings might not apply to everyone.

Abstract

We conducted a retrospective observational study using remote wearable and mobile application data to evaluate whether US public holidays or Daylight Saving Time transitions were associated with significant changes in sleep behaviors, including sleep duration, sleep onset and offset, and the consistency of sleep timing, as well as changes in the point prevalence of alcohol use. These metrics were analyzed using objective, high resolution sleep-wake data (10,350,760 sleep episodes) and 5,777,008 survey responses of 24,250 US subscribers (74.5% male; mean age of 37.6 ± 9.8 years) to the wrist-worn biometric device platform, WHOOP (Boston, Massachusetts, United States), who were active users during 1 May 2020, through 1 May 2021. Compared to baseline, statistically significant differences in sleep and alcohol measures were found on most DST transitions, US public holidays, and their eves. For example, New Year's Eve corresponded with a sleep consistency decrease of 13.8 ± 0.3%, a sleep onset delay of 88.9 ± 3.2 min (00:01 vs. 22:33 baseline) later, a sleep offset delay of 78.1 ± 3.1 min (07:56 vs. 06:39), and an increase in the prevalence of alcohol consumption, with more than twice as many participants having reported alcohol consumption [+138.0% ± 6.7 (74.2% vs. 31.2%)] compared to baseline. In this analysis of a non-random sample of mostly male subscribers conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of US public holidays and holiday eves were associated with sample-level increases in sleep duration, decreases in sleep consistency, later sleep onset and offset, and increases in the prevalence of alcohol consumption. Future work would be warranted to explore the generalizability of these findings and their public health implications, including in more representative samples and over longer time intervals.

Topics

Impact of Light on Environment and Health Sleep and related disorders Sleep and Work-Related Fatigue

Categories

Experimental and Cognitive Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Actigraphy Alcohol Alcohol consumption Audiology Biochemistry Chemistry Circadian rhythm Computer science Demography Gerontology Insomnia Internal medicine Medicine Operating system Psychiatry Sleep (system call) Sleep onset Sociology

Conditions & symptoms

Sleep disorder Substance abuse disorder Poor sleep