It should come as no surpise that it is harder to fall asleep in an unfamiliar location, but a new study published in Current Biology is attempting to learn the science behind the reason why people sleep so poorly after they’ve moved into a new home.
The reason for this first sleepless night has to do with one hemisphere of the brain staying awake as a way to watch for potential danger. The study showed that the brains of people who were sleeping in an unfamiliar location did not show the slow wave activity that brains typically showed when in deep sleep. One hemisphere always seemed to be awake and was able to induce wakefulness much faster at the first sign of any unusual signals from the environment.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2816%2930174-9