Life
How Do Your Sleep Habits Compare To Everyone Else?
In my experience, as we all stagger in to work every Monday morning, conversation quickly turns into a friendly competition to see who got the least sleep that weekend. Have you ever wondered, however, how much sleep you really get compared to the rest of the United States? As it turns out, the bar is actually a lot higher than you'd think based on your office's collective coffee addiction.
According to TIME, health tracker manufacturer Withings recorded the sleep habits of more than 10,000 users over the course of 15 million nights last year. Although research in 2014 indicated that the average person only needs around seven and a half hours of rest each night, Withings found that Americans are actually getting more than that. Users of Withings' products got an average of seven hours and 50 minutes of sleep nightly, and the average bedtime was 11:32 PM, with a 7:22 AM wake-up time.
Unsurprisingly, trends vary from state to state. Colorado wakes up the earliest with an average of 7:07 AM (yuck), while North Dakota sleeps in until... 7:38 AM. So, not actually that much later. New York goes to sleep the latest, unsurprisingly, and its residents are second only to North Dakota in terms of sleeping in.
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South Dakotans go to sleep the earliest (nerds), hitting the hay at a pitiful 10:58 AM. (Side note: that explains why my mother, who struggles to stay awake past 9 PM, loves that state so much.) Overall, Delaware appears to get the least amount of sleep, although they still get an average of seven hours and 36 minutes. According to the study, Montana is the place to be if you're an avid sleeper (and aren't we all?); residents get eight hours and 20 minutes per night, on average.
As TIME points out, however, the demographics of Withings' research aren't as inclusive as anything from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Users of Withings products tend to be males between age 35 and 40 who are "interested in technology," so the statistics aren't exactly foolproof. However, it does show that fitness trackers could prove to be veritable goldmines of more accurate information because they can monitor sleep habits more closely than self-report or even human observation.
To check out how you stack up against the rest of America, head over to the TIME website, where there are all sorts of handy graphics to make you feel smug about your sleep habits.
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