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Many Americans are so worried about the future that they’re losing sleep, according to new research.
A new study of 2,000 Americans found 62% struggle to fall asleep — of those, 41% are up all night due to “next day anxiety,” or fearing the uncertainty of what tomorrow holds.
Along with anxiety about the future, replaying the past day’s events (37%), being too hot or too cold (31%) and having too much caffeine earlier in the day (28%) are all to blame for keeping people awake deep in the night.
Several respondents even claimed other factors such as feeling uncomfortable, too itchy and having a fear of nightmares have also kept them up at night.
For 101 respondents, dogs are to blame for lack of sleep. By comparison, 77 respondents blamed their cats.
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More than a quarter of Americans polled (27%) have been diagnosed with a sleeping disorder. The most common disorders among them are insomnia (45%), sleep apnea (44%) and restless leg syndrome (17%).
Though 73% have never been diagnosed with a sleeping disorder, a third have spouses/partners that insist they have a sleeping disorder of some kind.
Results found people will wake up in the middle of the night an average of five times every week. And when they wake up, 63% of people will struggle to go back to sleep.
People will rely on a lot of things to get comfy in bed. Top among them include a favorite pillow (54%) or blanket (50%), having the right mattress (38%) and having their partner next to them (28%).
On average, Americans take 27 minutes to fall asleep. For more than a third (37%), falling asleep takes less than 15 minutes. For 11% of Americans, it takes over an hour.
The survey also looked into respondents' dreams, and results found nearly eight in 10 people (78%) have had dreams that felt real.
These types of realistic, stressful dreams also seem to be on the rise. Half of Americans report they have had more stress-related dreams this year than ever before.
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When asked to identify the source of their stress dreams, respondents said the current pandemic crisis — with money woes equally to blame (36%), while earlier events of the day also rank high as a stressor (32%).
source: people.com
