

The researchers analyzed Google search data in the U.S and worldwide between Jan. Daytime symptoms associated with insomnia include fatigue or sleepiness feeling dissatisfied with sleep having trouble concentrating feeling depressed, anxious or irritable and having low motivation or energy. Insomnia involves difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, or regularly waking up earlier than desired, despite allowing enough time in bed for sleep. The study is published online as an accepted paper in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. "I think it's safe to say, based on our findings as well as those from survey studies showing an increased level of insomnia symptoms in certain populations, that a lot of people were having trouble sleeping during the first months of the pandemic," said lead author Kirsi-Marja Zitting, who has a doctorate in physiology and neurobiology and is an instructor in medicine and associate neuroscientist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. This increase also was associated with the cumulative number of COVID-19-related deaths in the spring.
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While searches for insomnia trended downward from January through March 2020, consistent with prior years, they surged upward in April and May 2020. for the first five months of 2020, an increase of 58% compared with the same period from the previous three years. Results show there were 2.77 million Google searches for insomnia in the U.S.
