Ikea has surveyed a staggering 55,221 participants across 57 markets and found out that we get one hour and 20 minutes less sleep than we want. This equates to more than 20 full days of lost rest annually.
The report revealed that the Mainland Chinese have the best quality sleep – with people consistently reporting an average of more than seven hours of sleep per night. It is the Norwegians who have the less sleep. The Americans came in second to last on this metric but topped the list for the most disrupted sleep.
In fact, worldwide, more than a quarter of respondents rated their sleep quality as poor. Nearly a fifth of those surveyed reported that they wake up more than twice a night and 18% wake up feeling tired almost every day.
So what is impacting our sleep? The survey pointed the finger at financial security, with 36% of people globally saying they need more money to improve their sleep. This is reflected in the fact that 40% of people said that stress, anxiety, and overthinking are the main reasons why they are losing sleep.
Screen time before bed is also playing a role. Three quarters (72%) of respodents use their phones in the bedroom, but this figure increases to 86% among 18-24-year-olds. This is also the group most likely to worry about the amount of sleep they get. In addition, 24% use laptops in bed, and 39% watch TV before sleep.
There was a global agreement that we all want more sleep. The report found that 70% of people view sleep as one of life’s greatest joys. In fact, 58% of respondents say that they prefer staying in and sleeping to going out and socialising.
Ikea has teamed up with a mathematician Dr Tom Crawford from the University of Oxford to take the data and create what it calling the IKEA Sleep Formula. People can input their data to get a sleep score of between 1 and 100. It combines five key variables: comfort, stress, well-being, vices and schedule to provide a personalised blueprint for better rest: 𝑆𝑙𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑆𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒=100[𝐶𝑜𝑚𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑡±max{𝑊𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔,𝑆𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠}−𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠+𝑆𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑑𝑢𝑙𝑒]76
The worldwide survey is hoped will guide people towards better sleep habits by showing them how to get their sleep score up. And a decent mattress, bedding, blinds and uncluttered space all play a role!
