ABSTRACT
Introduction: The current pandemic has caused several social and behavioural changes at a national level. These changes had a negative impact on mental health and sleep quality. Sleep is one of the main regulators and repairers of the body and is involved in both cognition and memory as well as immunity and hormonal balance. Objective: This study seeks to identify the main sleep disorders aggravated by the COVID-19 Pandemic and their consequences to the population. Methods: A bibliographic narrative review was made with articles dating from the last 5 years (2016-2021), which were extracted from the National Library of Medicine (PubMed), Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS) and “Google Academic” databases, using the following keywords and descriptors in Portuguese and English; “Sleep/Sono”, “Sleep Disorders/Distúrbios do Sono”, “Insomnia”, “Pandemic/Pandemia”, “COVID-19”, “Immunity/Imunidade”, “Viral Infections/Infecções virais”, “Coronavírus”, “Sleep-Wake Cycle Rhythm/Ritmo ciclo-vigília”, “Biological Clocks/Relógios biológicos” and the Boolean operator “and/e”. Results and Discussion: Insomnia and sleep-wake cycle changes have been quite evident among the population and were mainly aggravated by the increase of anxiety and depressive symptoms taking place during the pandemic. Students have gone through major routine changes disrupting their daily activities, such as physical activities, class schedules, and use of electronic equipment, which in turn accentuate sleep problems affecting their academic performance and learning. Conclusion: The pandemic has changed many habits and routines, with students among those who were affected the most, both in terms of psychological disorders affecting quality of sleep, as well as irregular sleep that itself influences cognition and learning. Insomnia has proved to be frequent in the population, and its effects on the body, especially regarding the immune system and emotional regulation are not favourable for confronting the new coronavirus.