Sleep shouldn’t be treated as a luxury; it’s basic physiology. During those hours, the brain consolidates memories, cleans itself up on a molecular level, and resets systems that help people focus during the day.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, daily life has shifted — and so have many people’s sleep patterns. New research suggests that Americans are going to bed a little earlier and getting up a little later since 2020. Sleep experts at the University of Chicago Medicine offer tips to make sure those extra minutes of rest are truly restorative.

Research suggests adults are spending more time in bed

Chronic disease epidemiologist Diane Lauderdale, PhD, Chair of Public Health Sciences at UChicago, has spent more than two decades studying sleep and its ripple effects across demographics and areas of health. For her latest paper, published in Sleep Advances, she worked with undergraduate Evan Mathura to analyze data from the American Time Use Survey, a nationally representative 24-hour diary (4 a.m. to 4 a.m.) that records when people start and stop every activity.

Focusing on employed adults, they pulled three clean metrics from the diaries: morning wake time, bedtime later that night, and total minutes people counted as sleep within a 24-hour period. Lauderdale is careful to qualify that final category as “time set aside for sleep,” since time diaries can’t judge sleep quality or distinguish whether people spent some of that time in bed on non-sleep activities like reading a book or scrolling on their phones.

Comparing data from before and after March 2020 revealed a population-wide shift toward earlier bedtimes and later wake times, creating a small yet persistent increase of about 15 minutes in time set aside for sleep after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People may be starting to value sleep more, and there’s also been more flexibility in a lot of workplaces with respect to work timing,” Lauderdale said. “As constraints around work and other aspects of public life have changed, people are availing themselves of a little bit more time to sleep, and that’s a good thing.”

Working from home rose unevenly — more common among higher-income and more educated Americans — but the extra time in bed showed up across groups even when the researchers adjusted their analyses for whether or not individuals had a commute.

“Social and historical circumstances really do influence sleep behavior,” Lauderdale said. “It’s not just some innate physiologic thing.”

For Lauderdale, the public-health takeaway is encouraging: when life allowed, people gave themselves a little more opportunity to sleep. The next step is to pair that opportunity with habits — and healthcare, when needed — that improve the quality of the sleep itself.

Quantity vs. quality: why both matter

“Sleep is an absolutely essential part of life,” said Kenneth Lee, MD, a neurologist and sleep medicine physician. “We don’t really know why we sleep, but we know a lot happens during sleep, like clearing metabolic waste, supporting memory and regulating other body systems. And we know there are serious health risks associated with being sleep deprived.”

On sleep quantity, Lee points to the standard guideline: 7–9 hours for most adults. But he cautions against treating it like a rigid scorecard.

“Everybody’s a little bit different,” he said. “You’re probably functional at six hours, but that’s probably not optimal.” Chronic partial sleep loss can chip away at performance and well-being over time.

On sleep quality, he looks for warning signs, like when patients report feeling sleepy, fatigued and low energy.

“Sometimes people experience micro-sleep, in which they don’t even recognize when they’ve fallen asleep, or they even find themselves falling asleep in traffic at red lights,” Lee said.

These kinds of clues prompt physicians to screen for disorders like sleep apnea or periodic limb movements. “Someone may get eight hours and not feel refreshed,” Lee said. “In a lot of those patients, the body says, ‘We didn’t get great quality sleep — let’s sleep for even longer.’”

Translation: more time in bed isn’t a cure-all on its own.

Tips for better sleep

Lauderdale’s data suggest many people reclaimed an average of 15 minutes from their busy lives for sleep. Here’s how to make those minutes restorative:

• Don’t spend a lot of time awake in bed. “Make sure that the bed is really only for sleep and intimacy,” Lee said. Checking email or scrolling social media in bed trains the brain that the space is for being awake. One corollary: “If you’re not falling asleep within 20 to 30 minutes, get out of bed, then return when you’re sleepy. By spending more time in bed not sleeping, your body is learning how to not sleep in bed.”
• Cool, dark and quiet. Simple “sleep hygiene” steps help the body wind down. Lee supports well-known best practices like a cool, dark room, a steady wind-down routine, and limiting stimulating activities at night. He’s clear, though: hygiene is only the tip of the iceberg for severe insomnia — some people need targeted therapies beyond environmental tweaks.
• Don’t chase sleep by “trying harder.” After a short night, many people plan extra time in bed to “catch up” on sleep. That can backfire if you’re simply lying awake. Sticking to a routine and following the previous tips will serve you better in the long run.

If daytime sleepiness, frequent dozing, loud snoring, witnessed pauses in breathing, or unrefreshing mornings are common, talk to your primary care clinician or a sleep specialist.