Sleep Trends Worldwide

An educational and scientific not-for-profit organization, the National Sleep Foundation (Virginia, USA) is comprised of member researchers and clinicians focused on sleep medicine, professionals in the health, medical and science fields.  The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) released its first international poll today, the “2013 International Bedroom Poll,”  comparing sleep times, attitudes, habits and bedtime routines of those in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan between the ages of 25 and 55 years old. Japan and the United States report the least amount of sleep. Japanese and Americans report sleeping about 30 to 40 minutes less on workdays than those in the other countries surveyed, averaging 6 hours and 22 minutes and 6 hours and 31 minutes of sleep, respectively. Perhaps to compensate for less sleep, about one-half (51%) of both Japanese and Americans have taken at least one nap in the past two weeks. Every country reported sleeping in on weekends, with an average of an extra 45 minutes of sleep on days they do not work.  Less than one- half of people in Mexico (48%), the United States (44%), Canada (43%), the United Kingdom (42%) and Germany (40%), and slightly more than one-half in Japan (54%) say they get a good night's sleep every night or almost every night on work nights or week nights. One-fourth of those in the United Kingdom (27%), the United States (25%) and Canada (23%) say they rarely or never get a good night's sleep during the work week.  Notably, one in ten in the United Kingdom (11%) say they never get a good night's sleep on work nights, twice the percentage of the other countries surveyed.