Objective To investigate the sleep status and its influencing factors of medical officers and soldiers on their first long-distance navigation. Methods With cluster sampling method, 91 medical officers and soldiers were investigated with self-made general information questionnaire and Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI). Results A total of 91 valid questionnaires were collected, with an effective rate of 100%. During the long-distance navigation, the insomnia rate of medical officers and soldiers was 63.74% (58/91), which was significantly higher than that before the navigation (43.96%,40/91) (P<0.01). The PSQI score was 7.59±5.35 at the end of 4 months, and 39 cases (42.86%) had PSQI score>7. The most common symptom of insomnia was "difficulty in falling asleep" (89.66%, 52/58); and the most cases (70.69%, 41/58) were affected by timing adjustment, followed by environmental changes (56.90%, 33/58). Logistic regression analysis showed that bed position was the main influencing factor of insomnia (P<0.05). The medical officers and soldiers alleviated insomnia mainly by increasing exercise, only one of them alleviated insomnia through psychological counseling. Conclusion Long-distance navigation has a serious impact on the sleep status of medical officers and soldiers. Sleep problems in medical officers and soldiers on their first long-distance navigation tasks are serious. The incidence of insomnia is high due to the influence of timing adjustment and environmental changes, and there is a lack of reasonable prevention and treatment measures.