People are sleeping for longer hours during lockdowns and work from home scenario as they do not need to travel to workplaces but the quality of sleep has become worse in many, reveals new research. If the differences in sleep timing and duration between work days and days off become too large, this can lead to "social jetlag". A latest survey by the University of Basel in Switzerland found respondents admitting sleeping up to 50 minutes longer than before the lockdown. One factor contributing to this could be that people no longer had to commute to work in the morning.

Flexible working hours, no commuting and potentially more time to sleep led to a reduction in "social jetlag", according to psychologist Dr Christine Blume from the University of Basel. However, the reduction of "social jetlag" was not paralleled by an improvement in perceived sleep quality. To the contrary, those surveyed reported that their sleep quality actually deteriorated a little during the lockdown.