Human
Do Humans Really Sleep Less Today?
Brooke James
First Posted: Oct 13, 2016 05:16 AM EDT
In school, we are taught that we should get at least eight hours of sleep every night. While the length of sleep recommended varies by age, it is also a given fact that not being able to sleep at all can kill. It could be because of their lifestyle or the impact of technology in society, but today, it seems that people are sleeping less.
IFL Science cited a UK data that was collected around a decade ago, where a representative sample of adults said that they slept an average of seven hours and three minutes a day. Based on this, it was then concluded that over half the population slept between five and a half hours and eight hours 25 minutes a day, and bout three-quarters slept between five and nine and a half quarters per night.
Sleep is actually more complicated than that: people tend to sleep longer on rest days compared than work days, not to mention, their age. That being said, it seems that on an individual level, people sleep about 20 to 30 minutes less per decade.
However, the data from South Korea showed similar results: from regular surveys taken between 1981 and 2005, people's sleep pattern didn't change much over the weekday period, although Saturday sleep increased by 13 minutes, and Sunday, by 24.
The same phenomenon may also be observed in other countries if looked into, but it is not really about people adapting to the environment: it's about the demands of work, plain and simple. The rising demands of the work week increases the amount of sleep that we need, so with less time available on weeknights, the gap can be compensated by weekends - if they are compensated at all. After all, there are still time with family, exercise, and other demands that allows us to sleep less than we like.
So do we sleep less than we used to? Not likely, but we definitely sleep less well that we should.
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First Posted: Oct 13, 2016 05:16 AM EDT
In school, we are taught that we should get at least eight hours of sleep every night. While the length of sleep recommended varies by age, it is also a given fact that not being able to sleep at all can kill. It could be because of their lifestyle or the impact of technology in society, but today, it seems that people are sleeping less.
IFL Science cited a UK data that was collected around a decade ago, where a representative sample of adults said that they slept an average of seven hours and three minutes a day. Based on this, it was then concluded that over half the population slept between five and a half hours and eight hours 25 minutes a day, and bout three-quarters slept between five and nine and a half quarters per night.
Sleep is actually more complicated than that: people tend to sleep longer on rest days compared than work days, not to mention, their age. That being said, it seems that on an individual level, people sleep about 20 to 30 minutes less per decade.
However, the data from South Korea showed similar results: from regular surveys taken between 1981 and 2005, people's sleep pattern didn't change much over the weekday period, although Saturday sleep increased by 13 minutes, and Sunday, by 24.
The same phenomenon may also be observed in other countries if looked into, but it is not really about people adapting to the environment: it's about the demands of work, plain and simple. The rising demands of the work week increases the amount of sleep that we need, so with less time available on weeknights, the gap can be compensated by weekends - if they are compensated at all. After all, there are still time with family, exercise, and other demands that allows us to sleep less than we like.
So do we sleep less than we used to? Not likely, but we definitely sleep less well that we should.
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone