It's no secret that sleeping habits differ dramatically depending on where you are in the world. In case you've ever wanted to look closer at the whole thing, though, the data scientists at Jawbone have you covered with their latest report. Which cities are the most sleep deprived? Which are the most well rested? Here are your answers!
You’re probably most familiar with Jawbone from the Jambox; they make things other than speakers, though, including a lifestyle tool called UP. One of the many things that UP does is track your sleep — when you go to bed, when you wake up, how long it takes you to fall asleep, the number of times you wake up in the middle of the night, and more. So, using data compiled from UP users in a selection of international cities — at least 5,000 users per city — Jawbone’s data scientists did a little analysis to see how we all measure up against each other in the land of Tir na nog.
As you might expect, they found a huge array of fascinating habits and variations from city to city. Tokyo, for example, clocks the least amount of sleep total per night — only five hours and 44 minutes — while Melbourne logs the most at six hours and 58 minutes (I'm assuming that this data subtracts the times people spend conscious after waking up in the middle of the night). Brisbane, meanwhile, both goes to bed the earliest (10:57PM) and wakes up the earliest (6:29AM). Madrid and Beijing have both embraced a midafternoon nap as a way of life, which I think is an excellent idea; personally, I think everyone could benefit from siesta culture, but maybe that’s just me. Oh, and Americans in particular could probably stand to get a little more shuteye: As the Washington Post pointed out, 21 of the U.S.’s biggest cities get less than seven hours of sleep per night. As far as we know, there’s no “magic number” for how much sleep we should be getting — but generally, seven to eight hours is a good target. I don’t know how Tokyo functions. Seriously. I would be like this:
Anyway, I recommend poking around Jawbone’s full report; they’ve got some neat-o interactives that let you compare when different cities are asleep (did you know that at least 10 percent of Dubai is awake all the time?), how many steps its citizens tend to take per day, and more. I’d be interested to see what sort of picture we get when we combine the data from over experiments, too — say, IKEA’s Life at Home report. How do the morning routines of the cities who sleep less differ from those who sleep more? Are they different in cities that walk more vs. those that don’t? Food for thought.
Oh, and for those of you who are with me on the whole siesta thing, the infographic below might be of interest. Created by Patio Productions, it has pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about napping in one place. I wouldn’t recommend indulging in “The Lazy Man’s Nap” too frequently, though; science says that the power nap will give you the most bang for your metaphorical sleep buck.
Sweet dreams, everyone!
Images: Giphy; Patio Productions
