Up late? Early riser? Regardless, if you’re like most Americans, your sleep is taking a big hit. According to a new Sleep Number study conducted by an independent research firm, Americans sleep an average of 6.7 hours per night (experts recommend eight hours). But, only 5.68 hours of that are considered restful. If that’s not enough to make you want to take a nap, 41 percent report they get four hours or less of restful sleep per night.
New York may be home to the “city that never sleeps,” but there are 11 states getting less sleep than the Empire State, including Georgia and Hawaii, the most sleep-deprived states in the country.
How do Vermont residents stack up to the rest of the country? They are the tired with New Hampshire for the second most rested state in the nation! Vermonters gets an average of 7.06 hours of sleep per night.
State populations getting the least amount of sleep are:
• Georgia (6.09 hours)
• Hawaii (6.28 hours)
• Nevada (6.31 hours)
• Oklahoma (6.36 hours)
• Arizona (6.39 hours)
State populations that get the most sleep are:
• Idaho (7.12 hours)
• Vermont (7.06 hours)
• New Hampshire (7.06 hours)
• Montana (6.95 hours)
• Oregon (6.94 hours)
May is Better Sleep Month – an ideal time to rethink your bed and to develop better sleep habits.
According to the study, more than half of people (58 percent) wish they knew more about improving their sleep quality, with Hawaii at the top of that list (78 percent). Yet, few actually track their sleep like they do other parts of their lives, such as diet and exercise. In fact, 43 percent of Americans have tracked exercise and 41 percent have tracked diet, yet only 16 percent have tracked their sleep.
According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, scientists have gone to great lengths to fully understand sleep’s benefits. In studies of humans and other animals, they have discovered that sleep plays a critical role in immune function, metabolism, memory, learning, and other vital functions.
For more information and steps to improve sleep visit https://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/healthy/getting/overcoming/tips
