Getting over the first-night effect

The first night in a new place is always the same for Robinson Leoni: He takes longer to fall asleep, wakes up more often during the night, and gets less sleep overall. At home, he averages seven hours. The first night away – with or without earplugs and regardless of the bed’s quality – his smartwatch tells him he gets about five. “I feel normal, you know, no stress, nothing, but it’s just I notice I wake up continuously,” said Leoni, a sales director for a tech company who travels once or twice a month for work.