Your partner probably wakes you up at night without you even realizing it

Sleeping with a partner leads to more nighttime awakenings than sleeping alone. Often these disturbances are brief and forgotten by morning, but there are strategies to deal with them if they become problematic.

“Research has found that subjectively, people think they sleep better together than when they sleep apart, but when you measure it objectively, there is more sleep disruption when they sleep together,” he says. Sean Drummond at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.

To examine the effects of bed sharing on couples’ sleep, Lionel Rayward at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia and colleagues conducted a systematic review of existing research. All of the studies they examined found evidence of co-sleeping partner interference, with between 30 and 46 percent of couples’ movements being shared. In other words, when one person pulled the blanket, rolled over, kicked a leg, or made other movements, their partner moved as well.

One sleep lab study, for example, recorded an average of 51 leg movements per night in individuals when they slept alone, but 62 when they slept with their partner. This translated to two extra awakenings per nightas determined by electrodes on the head that monitor the electrical brain activity of individuals.

The review also included a study by Drummond’s team that asked couples to wear a motion-detecting smartwatch while they slept in a shared bed at home. On average, participants were awake six times a night their partner’s movements. But they only remembered one of them, on average, the next day, suggesting that most partner disruptions are minor and have minimal effect on overall sleep quality, Drummond says. “When both partners are healthy and asleep, these awakenings are probably not a big deal, they just roll over and go back to sleep,” she says.

Serious sleep disturbances are more likely to occur when one partner snores or suffers from insomnia, according to a recent review. “An insomniac is more likely to toss and turn, or even if they’re lying there trying to be quiet, it’s hard for them to stay still when they’re awake, so there’s more activity and they’re more likely to disturb their partner,” says Drummond.

These problems can sometimes lead to a “sleep divorce” where partners sleep in separate beds or rooms so as not to disturb each other. “There’s nothing unhealthy about sleeping apart, but some couples see it as defeating their relationship, and I personally think it’s much better to try to solve the real sleep problem,” says Drummond.

If one member of a couple has insomnia, for example, Drummond and his team found that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be beneficial, especially when partners attend sessions together. After treatment, both partners tend to sleep better, she says.

If curling of the blankets or different temperature preferences is a problem, Rayward and his colleagues recommend trying the “Scandinavian method,” which involves sharing the same bed but using separate blankets.

Treatment for snoring includes continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines, which keep people’s airways open, and “jaw advancement devices,” mouthguard-like devices made by dentists that pull the lower jaw forward. “This moves the tongue forward and creates more space in the back of the throat, making it easier to breathe in and out and reduce snoring,” he says Amal Osman at Flinders University in Australia. Some people only snore on their backs, which can sometimes be solved by wearing a backpack to bed to encourage side sleeping, Osman says.

O 80 to 90 percent of couples in the UK and US sleep in the same bed, compared to 63 per cent in Japan, where mothers often sleep with children in the same room, while fathers sleep in another.

Co-sleeping is considered the most common way of sleeping in human history because it provides warmth and a sense of security. Some of the oldest mattresses ever found – included 77,000-year-old plant mattresses discovered in South Africa – are large enough to fit entire families.

Pre-industrial societies also usually sleep together. For example, the Hadza people of Tanzania sleep side by side in family groups in small huts. Research has found that Hadza adults wake up regularly 40 percent they tend to be awake or dozing lightly at any time during the night, perhaps to make sure someone is constantly listening for danger. Despite these periodic breakdowns, however, they reports no sleep problems.

This suggests we shouldn’t worry too much about strange sleep disturbances from others, Drummond says. “The reality is that everyone wakes up several times each night — no one sleeps 100 percent of the time.”

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