We are sleeping more in 2013 than ever before
04-06-2013
Are you feeling more tired this year? Well you shouldn’t be, apparently we are sleeping more in 2013 than ever before.
Yes, according to recent research done in the UK we are getting more sleep now than we were 30 years ago. In fact, a quarter of us are averaging 9 hours of sleep a night. In 1983 that figure was one in six, showing a near double increase.
The study has called into question the idea that our 24-hour society has disrupted conventional sleeping patterns, though, as some critics point out, while more are sleeping longer, at the other end of the spectrum there are also more people sleeping less.
What this means is that whereas 30 years ago the there were more people sleeping for around 7-9 hours a night, now there is a more even spread between the 4-5 and the 8-9 hours a night.
Interestingly, this change in the sleep spectrum has mirrored the changed political regime in the UK. 30 years ago the UK was a Keynesian state that was focused on distributing resources fairly among the population. Since then the welfare state has been largely dismantled and inequality in resources has soared, just as the division of sleep has changed dramatically.
Maybe sleep patterns and political regime are causationally linked.
More stories like this one
