Years Later, Our Sleep Still Hasn't Recovered From the Pandemic

New research from King's College London confirms what a lot of us have quietly suspected: the sleep problems that started during COVID-19 lockdowns never really went away for many people, even years after restrictions lifted.

What the study found

Published in the Journal of Sleep Research, the study was led by King's College London in partnership with Flinders University, and is one of the first large-scale, long-term studies to track whether pandemic-era sleep problems actually improved once life went back to "normal."

Researchers followed 2,390 participants from the UK COVID Symptom Study Biobank. Everyone completed detailed questionnaires twice: once in 2021, during lockdown restrictions, and again in 2022, well after those restrictions had ended. The surveys covered sleep quality, fatigue, depression, and anxiety.

The result was sobering. Even after restrictions lifted, high rates of poor sleep and fatigue persisted across the group — and this held true regardless of whether someone had ever tested positive for COVID-19, or whether they went on to develop Post-COVID Syndrome (long COVID). In other words, you didn't need to have caught the virus for your sleep to have taken a lasting hit. The disruption of the pandemic experience itself appears to have left a mark.

This isn't just a UK phenomenon, either. As Professor Emma Duncan of King's College London, co-senior author of the study, put it: "Our data fit with results from around the world — that the experience of the pandemic itself was associated with sleep disturbance globally."

Why this matters beyond "feeling tired"

It's tempting to write off ongoing tiredness as just a side effect of a busier, post-pandemic life. But the research points to something more specific and more concerning: sleep disturbance that sets in and simply stays, untreated.

Professor Sutapa Mukherjee of Flinders University, the study's other co-senior author, explained that this tracks with what sleep clinicians already knew before the pandemic — once a sleep disturbance takes hold, it's unlikely to resolve on its own. It usually needs some kind of intervention.

That matters because poor sleep isn't an isolated issue. It's been linked to reduced immune function, increased inflammation, and poorer mental health, including effects on mood and cognition. For the estimated 1.9 million people in the UK alone living with long COVID symptoms, the researchers specifically recommend that sleep be assessed routinely as part of ongoing care — not treated as an afterthought to fatigue.

Rebuilding a sleep routine that actually works

If you've noticed your own sleep hasn't fully bounced back since 2020 or 2021, this study is a useful reminder that you're not imagining it, and you're far from alone. It also reinforces something we believe strongly at Jabees: better sleep rarely happens by accident. It comes from small, consistent, deliberate routines that make winding down easier, night after night.

That's the thinking behind PEACE and PEACE Duo, our bone-conduction pillow speakers. Instead of earbuds pressing into your ear or a phone glowing on the nightstand, sound travels gently through the pillow itself, so you can listen to a podcast, an audiobook, or one of the built-in sleep soundscapes without anything in or over your ears. PEACE Duo takes it a step further with two separate units for dedicated left and right channels, so audio feels full even at low volume — and a built-in sleep timer means it powers down on its own once you've drifted off, whether that's after 30 minutes or two hours.

It's a small piece of a much bigger picture. No pillow speaker replaces proper sleep assessment or treatment for a genuine sleep disorder, and if your sleep has been struggling for a long time, this research is a good reason to actually bring it up with a doctor rather than pushing through it. But for the everyday process of winding down at night, having a tool that makes that transition easier can genuinely help.

The pandemic disrupted a lot of routines. This study is a reminder that rebuilding a healthy relationship with sleep is worth being deliberate about — because for a lot of people, it hasn't happened on its own.

Source: King's College London, "Poor sleep and fatigue remained widespread after the COVID-19 pandemic," 27 July 2026