Sleep Statistics

Sleep plays an integral role in health. A good night’s sleep empowers the body to recover and lets you wake up refreshed and ready to take on the day.

Unfortunately, many people have sleep problems and don’t get the rest that they need. Insufficient sleep and poor quality sleep can be due to diverse factors including sleep disorders,  medical conditions, and mental health. Sleep issues affect people of all ages, and its impacts can be far-reaching.

While sleep is too complex to sum up with only numbers, reviewing basic facts and figures about sleep can help you understand how sleep works, why it’s important, and the depth of the sleep deprivation problem in the United States.

Statistics About How We Sleep

• In a normal sleep period, a person experiences four to six sleep cycles.
• REM sleep makes up between 20-25% of total sleep in healthy adults.
• On average, we spend about two hours per night dreaming.
• The key driver of the body’s circadian rhythm, or internal clock, is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) in the brain, which is made up of around 20,000 neurons.
• Body temperature during sleep drops by one to two degrees fahrenheit.
• Metabolism drops by around 15% during NREM sleep.

Statistics About Insufficient Sleep

• Adults between 18 and 64 need seven to nine hours of sleep per night. Adults over 65 need 7-8 hours.
• 35.2% of all adults in the U.S.report sleeping on average for less than seven hours per night. 
• Almost half of all Americans say they feel sleepy during the day between three and seven days per week.
• At 43%, Hawaii has the highest percentage of adults who get seven or fewer hours of sleep per night. South Dakota, at 26%, has the lowest percentage.
• Of major cities in the United States, Boulder, Colorado has the lowest percentage of adults who sleep less than seven hours per night, coming in at 24.2%. Camden, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan tie for the highest rate, with 49.8% of adults in those cities reporting short sleep.
• When compared to whites, black adults are almost twice as likely to describe sleeping too little and are 60% more likely to report sleeping too much.
• After adjusting for age, insufficient sleep by race and ethnicity shows clear differences with 46.3% of Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders, 45.8% of black people, 40.4% of American Indians/Alaska Natives, 37.5% of Asians, 34.5% of Hispanics, and 33.4% of whites reporting getting less than seven hours of sleep.
• 42.6% of single parents sleep less than seven hours per night compared to 32.7% of adults in two-parent homes and 31% of adults with no children.
• 32.6% of working adults reported sleeping six or fewer hours per night in 2017-2018, up from 28.4% in 2008-2009.
• More than 44% of workers in production-focused industries, such as factory workers and plant operators, report getting seven hours of sleep or less per night.
• Active duty service members are 34% more likely to report insufficient sleep than people with no history of military service.

Statistics About Sleep Disorders

• Between 10% and 30% of adults struggle with chronic insomnia.
• It is believed that between 30% and 48% of older adults suffer from insomnia.
• Women have a lifetime risk of insomnia that is as much as 40% higher than that of men. 
• As many as 15-30% of males and 10-30% of females meet a broad definition of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA).
• Using a more limited definition of OSA, the condition affects 2-9% of adults in the U.S..
• A 10% increase in body weight can equate to a six-fold rise in the risk for OSA.
• About .9% of adults over 40 years old experience central sleep apnea (CSA).
• Restless leg syndrome (RLS) affects between 5-10% of adults and 2-4% of children.
• Between 135,000 and 200,000 people in the U.S have narcolepsy.
• People may apply up to 250 pounds of force when grinding their teeth during sleep.
• Up to 66% of people talk in their sleep at some point in their lives, but only 17% of people say it has happened in the last three months.
• In the last 12 months, roughly 5% of children and 1.5% of adults have had an episode of sleepwalking.
• Around 8% of people have an episode of sleep paralysis during the course of their life.

Statistics About Sleep Disruptions

• For adults over age 40, 69% of men and 76% of women get up to go to the bathroom at least once per night.
• About 16% of full-time workers in the U.S. worked evening or overnight shifts in 2017 and 2018.
• Jet lag most often affects people when they fly across five or more time zones with jet lag worsening the more time zones that they cross.
• Jet lag is worse when you fly eastwards because our circadian cycle is slightly longer than 24 hours.
• Around 57% of men and 40% of women in the U.S. snore.
• 41% of primary care patients say that they experienced night sweats in the last month.
• Nearly 60% of people with frequent heartburn say that it has a negative effect on their sleep.
• Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) makes women at least two times as likely to report insomnia-like symptoms before and during their period.
• Around 50% of pregnant women experience insomnia-like symptoms.

Statistics About Sleep in Children and Teens

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  Babies need 12-17 total hours of sleep each day depending on their age, and toddlers need 11-14.
• It is recommended that preschool children get 10-13 hours of total sleep daily while school-age kids should sleep 9-11 hours.
• Babies born prematurely may spend around 90% of their day asleep.
• Around 25% of young children have sleeping problems or experience excessive daytime sleepiness.
• From the ages of 13 to 19, average total sleep per night drops by 40 to 50 minutes.
• 57.8% of middle schoolers and 72.7% of high school students get less than the recommended amount of sleep for their age.
• 83% of middle schools and 93% of high schools in the U.S. start at or before 8:30 a.m.
• Up to 27% of children have minor and infrequent snoring.
• Roughly half of children between three and six years old experience nightmares.
• As many as 70% of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have mild to severe sleeping problems.

Statistics About the Impact of Insufficient Sleep

• Insufficient sleep has an estimated economic impact of over $411B each year in the United States alone.
• Drowsy driving is responsible for more than 6,000 fatal car crashes every year in the United States.
• People with severe insomnia are seven times more likely to have work-related accidents than good sleepers.
• Nurses working 12.5-hour shifts report committing more than three times as many medical errors than those working 8.5-hour shifts.

Statistics About Sleep and Mental Health

• 40% of people with insomnia are believed to also be affected by a mental health disorder.
• Around 75% of adults with depression suffer from insomnia.
• More than 90% of people with PTSD related to military combat have been found to have symptoms of insomnia.

Statistics About Sleep Hygiene

Sleep hygiene is a term that includes both the bedroom environment and sleep-related habits. Optimizing sleep hygiene can play an important role in addressing sleep insufficiency.

• 93% of people say that a comfortable mattress is important to being able to get quality sleep.
• 78% of people say they are more excited to go to bed if they have fresh-smelling sheets.
• Across a large population of sleepers, 54.1% of total time in bed was spent sleeping on their side, 37.5% sleeping on their back, and 7.3% sleeping on their stomach.
• In healthy adults, caffeine has a half-life of five hours, which means that around half of the caffeine consumed will be eliminated from the body in five hours.
• Drinking more than two servings of alcohol per day for men and more than one serving per day for women has been found to decrease sleep quality by 39.2%.
• 75 minutes of high-intensity exercise or 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week has been associated with reduced levels of daytime sleepiness and better concentration even when tired.

Statistics About Sleep Aids

• About 80% of people who take prescription sleep medications experienced residual effects like oversleeping, feeling groggy, or having a hard time concentrating the next day.
• 8.2% of adults say they took medication to help them sleep at least four times in the past week.
• 20% of American adults tried a natural remedy for sleep problems in the last year.
• Sales of melatonin supplements in the U.S. grew from $62M in 2003 to $378M in 2014, an increase of 500%.
• In a study of 31 melatonin supplements sold in stores, 71% were not within 10% of their listed dosage.
• The market for wearable devices, including activity and sleep trackers, is expected to reach over $62B in 2021.
• In a study of adults in the U.S., 28.2% said that they used a smartphone app to help keep track of their sleep.