Cigarette smokers are four times more likely to feel unrested after a night’s sleep. Smokers also spend less time in deep sleep and more time in light sleep, especially during the early stages of sleep.
Researchers theorized that smokers could be experiencing nicotine withdrawal each night, which could contribute to sleep disturbances.
Researchers compared the sleep architecture of 40 smokers with that of a matched group of 40 nonsmokers. All of the participants underwent home polysomnography, making this one of the first studies on the subject to use quantitative analysis rather than only subjective measures of sleep. Both the smoking and nonsmoking subjects were free of most smoking-associated medical problems and medication use.