Research shows sharing a bed with dogs does not reduce human sleep duration, despite common owner perceptions.
RT’s Three Key Takeaways:
- Objective Sleep Quality: Research utilizing wearable activity monitors found that sharing a bed with a dog did not significantly reduce sleep duration or sleep quality.
- Bidirectional Movement Patterns: Although nighttime movement between dogs and owners was closely synchronized, human activity more often preceded dog activity than the reverse.
- Perception vs Reality: Participants who slept with multiple dogs reported poorer subjective sleep quality, even though objective data demonstrated no actual difference in sleep disruption.
Sleeping alongside a dog does not disrupt human sleep as much as commonly thought, according to a study published in PLOS One by researchers from the University of Toronto and Duke University.
To determine how co-sleeping impacts nocturnal patterns, investigators examined the nighttime activity of 25 human participants and their 38 dogs over a four-week period. Participants and pets wore activity monitors—placed on the wrist for humans and on collars for dogs—to capture movement throughout the night.
According to the study findings, sharing a bed with a dog did not significantly impact sleep duration or sleep quality. This remained true even among participants who subjectively felt that their pets disturbed their sleep.
Synchronized Nighttime Movement
The study revealed that nighttime activity between owners and dogs was strongly correlated, with both becoming active around the same time. However, researchers observed that human movement more often preceded dog movement, suggesting that owners may disrupt their dogs more frequently than the pets disturb their owners.
“Our findings suggest that nighttime activity in humans and dogs is closely coupled and there may be discrepancies between objective and subjective sleep measures,” wrote the authors.
“Human and dog nighttime activities were generally correlated, but patterns were variable among pairs,” said study co-author Lavania Nagendran, PhD, of the department of anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. “Overall, their activity tended to be synchronized with human activity more often preceding dog activity than the other way around. Sleeping with dogs did not appear to influence objective measures of human sleep.”
Subjective Perceptions and Study Scope
The researchers also noted an association between household pet numbers and subjective perceptions, finding that people who slept with more dogs reported poorer sleep quality, though objective activity monitors did not reflect any decrease in sleep.
Additionally, survey data showed that most participants reported feeling safer when sleeping with their dogs, said study co-author Ming Fei Li, PhD, of the department of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University. Li explained that perceived feelings of safety may contribute to psychological benefits, even though time-series analysis showed human movement typically started before dog movement.
The authors noted limitations to the research, including a small sample size, the absence of a control group without dogs, and the need for future investigations to assess dogs of varying ages, breeds, and environments.
