A CONSENSUS has emerged that sleep is a critical health issue, but researchers have largely focused on individual behaviour. One area that has lagged behind is what researchers call dyadic sleep, or sleep concordance. About 60% of people sleep with another person. When one has sleep issues, both can suffer.Certain sleep disorders, such as snoring, have been shown to reduce the quality of relationships, largely because the person hearing the snoring experiences disrupted sleep. Women living with snorers are three times as likely to report sleep problems themselves. Insomnia has also been linked to lower relationship satisfaction.Research into couples’ sleeping patterns reveals a curious dynamic. When objective measures such as brain waves or eye movements are examined, people are generally found to sleep better when they sleep by themselves than when they sleep with a bed partner. Yet when they’re asked about sleeping alone, people say they are less satisfied.A chief impediment to sl...
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