Have you ever wondered if you would be able to get more of a lie in if you lived half way around the world? Well an innovative study published in the Wall Street Journal has provided us with some fascinating insight into sleeping habits from different cities across the globe, destroying New York’s title as the city that never sleeps!
Cities with most hours of sleep:
Melbourne, Australia: 7:05
London, UK: 7:02
Denver, USA: 7:02
Brisbane, Australia: 7:00
Paris, France: 7:00
Cities with least hours of sleep:
Tokyo, Japan: 5:46
Seoul, South Korea: 5:55
Dubai, UAE: 6:32
Singapore: 6:32
Mexico City, Mexico: 6:32
Somewhat surprisingly, given its size and bustling nature, London was logged as the city with the second longest average hours of sleep per night, whilst the top 3 sleep deprived cities in the world are all found in Asia, according to the findings.
Following these surprising results, we have taken a look and debunked some more common misconceptions about sleep from around the world:
1) Older people need less sleep:
As many people find it harder to sleep as they grow older, they believe that their body is telling them they need less sleep, when in reality the opposite is true!
The National Sleep Foundation claims that older adults benefit from getting as much sleep as they did when they were in their 30s. So however many hours you sleep when you are 35 is the amount of time you should be sleeping in your 70’s.
2) You can catch up on your sleep at weekends:
A commonly held belief is that you can catch up on any missed sleep during the week by sleeping a few extra hours at the weekend. According to research, this idea could actually be counterproductive, and often leaves you worse off.
Instead, you should look to gradually improve your sleeping patterns throughout the week in order to notice the health benefits of a good night’s sleep.
3) You can get by on just four hours sleep:
Former UK Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher famously remarked that she only needed 4 hours sleep a night to function. While she maybe among only 2-3% of the population that can survive on limited sleep, the majority of us need on average 7-8 hours sleep each night to stay fit, healthy and alert.
4) The more sleep you can get a night, the better:
We often think of a better night’s sleep in terms of how many hours we feel we have had. However, over the last few years, research has shown that rather than think in terms of quantity of sleep per night, we should be thinking in terms of sleep efficiency.
Sleep experts explain that sleep efficiency is most commonly referred to when talking about sleep quality. It’s pretty simple: If I go to bed at 11 p.m. and fall asleep immediately, then wake at 7 a.m. with no interruptions, I have a sleep efficiency of 100% (no-one ever does this by the way – anything above 85% is great). However, remember that it’s not about chasing averages, but about improving your own personal sleep efficiency.
Despite all the different sleeping habits across the world, we should never underestimate a mattress’ importance for getting a great night’s sleep. We founded Leesa with a simple goal: to help people sleep better, and with over 10,000+ five star reviews, you can now join the many people across the world who are getting a better night’s sleep!
