Wildfires are becoming more and more common. And you don’t need to be in the fire itself to feel the negative effects.
Even if you’re not coughing and wheezing, wildfire smoke can cause fatigue, disrupt your sleep, and stress you out. All this leaves you feeling drained each day — even if you’re thousands of kilometers away from the wildfire itself.
Below, we’ve covered how wildfire smoke can make you tired and how you can prevent this tiredness. Plus, we’ve shared how you can use RISE to get more energy, even when you have wildfire fire smoke to contend with.
“Fatigue is a common symptom of breathing in wildfire smoke, but it can also disrupt your sleep," says Dr. Chester Wu. "You might struggle to fall asleep or wake up often throughout the night, leaving you with low energy the next day. To help, invest in an air purifier and focus on your sleep hygiene, so you have the best chance of getting a full night’s sleep.”
Dr. Chester Wu is double board certified in Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine, and provides sleep medicine services, medication management, and psychotherapy to adults at his private sleep medicine and psychiatry practice.
Wildfire smoke can make you tired. Breathing it in can cause fatigue and it can disrupt your sleep, causing tiredness. Even stressing about wildfire smoke can make you tired as stress can keep you up.
Here’s what we know about wildfire smoke and tiredness.
Wildfire smoke is made up of both smoke and fine particles. The smoke contains carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and other chemicals like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
Inhaling this smoke can cause tiredness as it decreases the amount of oxygen available for your body, leading to low energy levels and headaches.
The small particles (also known as PM 2.5, or particulate matter with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less) can get deep into your respiratory system and even into your bloodstream. This can lead to irritation, shortness of breath, worsening asthma, and a decline in cognitive function.
Serious side effects of breathing it in include an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, and lung cancer.
Beyond serious health risks, these small particles can affect how you feel and perform. A 2022 study found exposure to fine particulate matter in wildfire smoke is associated with reduced attention in adults. It happens fast, too. Attention was impaired within hours or days of smoke exposure.
How you react to breathing in wildfire smoke will all depend on how much you breathe in, how long you breathe it in for, and whether you’re particularly vulnerable to it.
Vulnerable groups include young children, older adults, pregnant women, and those with health problems like asthma, diabetes, heart disease, or lung disease.
You might also have a higher risk of side effects if you’re currently recovering from COVID.
Breathing in wildfire smoke can cause fatigue. But that’s not the only symptom.
When you breathe in wildfire smoke, you might experience:
And all of these symptoms can make it harder to get enough sleep at night.
If you’ve already got a breathing issue — like asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — exposure to wildfire smoke can make it worse. And difficulty breathing or an asthma attack will, of course, impact your sleep.
You may also change your daily habits when the air outside is hazy, and these changes may further impact your sleep. For example, you might stay inside and skip exercise. But getting out in sunlight and working out are important habits that help you fall and stay asleep at night.
And you don’t need to be in a wildfire for the smoke to disrupt your sleep and make you tired. Smoke can travel thousands of kilometers, meaning you may have symptoms that keep you up even if your area isn’t directly affected.
A 2021 study surveyed those exposed to bushfire smoke in Australia and found half reported disrupted or poor sleep or fatigue as a result of smoke exposure. Younger age groups and women reported more symptoms. (We’ve covered the many causes of female fatigue here.) And participants with health conditions or poorer health, parents, and those directly affected by the fires also reported worse sleep problems.
Even being exposed once can cause health issues. A 2023 study on rats found a single bout of sleep disruption and smoke inhalation increased heart rate and blood pressure as rats woke up. In humans, this may translate into an increased stroke risk. Many of us experience disturbed sleep anyway, so adding in wildfire smoke exposure can make this an even bigger threat to your health.
And early life exposure may disrupt your sleep later in life. A 2023 study in monkeys found early-life exposure to wildfire smoke had significantly reduced sleep duration compared to those who weren’t exposed. Cortisol, the hormone your body produces when stressed that also helps to control your sleep-wake cycle, was also disrupted in monkeys exposed to smoke.
In short, all this sleep loss can lead to sleep debt, which is the amount of sleep you owe your body. The more sleep debt you have, the more tired you’re going to feel.
RISE can work out how much sleep debt you have.
RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can view their sleep debt here.
We’ve covered more on air quality and sleep here, including how to improve air quality in your bedroom.
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It’s no surprise that wildfires can cause stress. If you’re in the thick of it, you’ll be panicked about your home, family, and, potentially, your life, and you may have the added stress of having to evacuate.
All this stress can lead to sleep loss as your body’s in fight-or-flight mode, making it harder to fall and stay asleep.
A 2023 study looked at wildfire survivors in the US, Canada, and Australia. Almost 50% of them had insomnia symptoms, almost 30% had nightmares, and almost 78% had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Wildfire smoke was the biggest culprit. The study concluded, “smoke from wildfire emerged as the most significant trauma-related predictor of insomnia, which, in turn predicted the development of both PTSD and nightmares symptoms.”
The study also states survivors often report:
But even if you’re far enough away to not be in immediate danger, reading news about wildfires raging in your state or seeing hazy air is enough to spike your stress levels.
And RISE users say stress and anxiety are their biggest challenges when it comes to getting a good night’s sleep.
The 2021 study on bushfire smoke in Australia found over half of the participants reported symptoms of anxiety or depression. And a 2022 study on people living in Oregon found medium-to-heavy smoke exposure was linked to more uncontrollable worrying and a longer duration of exposure led to increased prevalence of worrying.
More research is needed to discover the true impacts of wildfire smoke on mental health. But we do know that you’ll probably have a harder time drifting off when stressed, which will make you tired the next day.
There’s strong evidence that wildfire smoke can make you tired, both directly and by disrupting your sleep. But more research is needed.
Many studies look at how smoke can affect your physical health, but there aren't as many studies on how it impacts your sleep.
There isn’t much research on the long-term effects of wildfire smoke, either. And studying the impacts is tricky right after a wildfire event.
The studies that have been done already also come with a few problems. They often use surveys and self-reported sleep data, which can be inaccurate, and they may define wildfire smoke in different ways.
Another problem is that smoke exposure and air pollution are often measured in different ways — sometimes it’s self-reported exposure, sometimes it’s assumed exposure based on proximity to a wildfire, and other times air pollution is measured with an outdoor tracker. All this makes it hard to compare studies on the impacts of wildfires.
As climate change makes wildfires more common, smoke inhalation will become more of a public health concern. So finding out more about the impacts will become even more important.
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You can prevent tiredness caused by wildfire smoke by investing in an air purifier, keeping the windows closed, and limiting outdoor activities. All this should reduce how much wildfire smoke you breathe in, and therefore how much it affects your energy levels.
Here’s what to do:
When the outdoor air quality improves, open your windows to increase ventilation and air out your home. Once the air clears up, your fatigue should also clear up in a few days. Speak to your healthcare provider if symptoms don’t clear up and seek medical care if they get serious.
You can’t always avoid wildfire smoke and the tiredness and sleep disruption it causes. To get more energy when exposed to wildfire smoke, focus on winding down before bed to keep stress low, getting morning sunlight, improving your sleep hygiene, and catching up on lost sleep when you can.
There may be some trade-offs you need to weigh up, like skipping morning walks when skies are smokey. Consider what impacts your sleep and energy the most.
Here’s how to make that happen:
Expert tip: Keep your sleep debt low at all times. You never know when wildfire smoke is going to affect your area and do a number on your energy levels. Plus, sleep deprivation can make you more vulnerable to the health impacts of smoke inhalation.
Current technology can only predict wildfires about a day out, though, meaning smoke can hit suddenly. Having low sleep debt when it happens will help you better manage any sleep loss and health risks that come your way.
We all need a different amount of sleep per night to feel alert each day. RISE works out how much sleep you need (known as your sleep need) based on your phone use behavior and sleep science algorithms.
Among 1.95 million RISE users aged 24 and up, we found sleep needs ranged from five hours to 11 hours 30 minutes. The median was eight hours, but 48% of users need eight hours or more sleep a night.
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RISE users on iOS 1.202 and above can click view their sleep need here and set up their 20+ in-app habit notifications here.
Breathing in wildfire smoke can make you feel tired, but it can also disrupt your sleep and cause stress, causing even more tiredness. To boost your energy levels, invest in an air filter, close the windows, and limit your time outside when smoke levels are high.
Improving your sleep hygiene and paying back sleep debt can help to boost your energy levels long term.
To nail your sleep hygiene, RISE can tell you when to do 20+ habits each day. The app can also work out how much sleep you need and how much sleep debt you have.
You don’t have to live with low energy — 80% of RISE users feel more energy within five days.
Yes, wildfire smoke can make you tired. Breathing in wildfire smoke can cause fatigue. Plus, it can make it harder to get enough sleep and cause stress, which further disrupts sleep and leads to tiredness.
Yes, wildfire smoke can cause headaches. Breathing in both the smoke and fine particles found in wildfire smoke has been shown to cause headaches. Wildfire smoke can also cause sleep deprivation and stress, which can cause headaches.
Wildfire smoke can cause tiredness, chest pain, coughing, wheezing, headaches, a runny nose, trouble breathing, trouble sleeping, and reduced attention. In the long term, wildfire smoke can have serious health effects, including an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke, and lung cancer.
Wildfire smoke can be worse at night as the air is cooler. Cool air sinks to the ground, bringing smoke with it. Cool air also moves less, and with less wind, wildfire smoke isn’t as dispersed.
Sleep with wildfire smoke by closing your windows, using an air purifier, and staying cool with a fan or air conditioning. Make sure you’re taking time to unwind before bed, so stress doesn’t keep you up, and doing sleep-promoting behaviors during the day, like getting morning sunlight. It may be better to get morning sunlight through a window or from a light therapy lamp, rather than from going outside, when wildfire smoke is affecting your area.
Feel better from wildfire smoke by reducing your exposure to it. When wildfire smoke is affecting your area, limit how much you go outside (especially to exercise), close your windows, use an air purifier, consider wearing a N95 mask, and make sure you’re getting enough sleep. If wildfire smoke is causing sleep loss, try catching up on sleep with naps.
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