The great nature-or-nurture debate boils down to the power of genetics versus the power of your environment. It’s often used in regard to chronic illness. People want to know if they are destined to develop an illness (i.e., breast cancer, Alzheimer’s, or alcoholism) because it runs in their family or if they can set up their lifestyle and environment in a way that overpowers the genetic risk.
When it comes to some illnesses, we find that the environment plays an incredibly strong role. For example, only about 5% of cancers2 can be explained by genetics alone.
But what about when it comes to sleep? Are some of us really destined to be “bad sleepers” thanks to our DNA—or do our environment and lifestyle affect our rest more than we realize?
According to sleep psychologist Joshua Tal, Ph.D., “The idea of being a ‘bad sleeper’ does have merit in genetics.” In other words, if you have a parent or a grandparent who has trouble sleeping, you’re definitely more likely to experience the same.
“There is a growing body of research showing that genes do play a role in sleep timing, sleep quantity, and sleep quality,” Nishi Bhopal, M.D., a board-certified psychiatrist and sleep doctor, adds. “We know that genes influence how much sleep a person might need and also the timing of sleep, meaning whether they’re a night owl or early bird.”
According to Bhopal, genetics may also account for 31% to 58%3 of a person’s likelihood of experiencing insomnia, although there’s still a lot more to learn before we can perform genetic testing for insomnia in an everyday doctor’s office.
