Women are more likely to get a good night's sleep than men, a new global study of sleep patterns has revealed.
The study, which has been published in *Science Advances,*used smartphone data gathered by an app to track the sleep patterns of nearly 6,000 people. The researchers behind the project, from the University of Michigan, wanted to understand how age, gender, location and more can impact sleep.
The researchers found that on average women got 30 minutes more sleep per night then men, thanks to both earlier bedtimes and later wake times.
The data also revealed that people "exposed to outdoor light go to sleep earlier and sleep more" than those who mainly experience indoor light. The researchers also found that age was the "primary determinant" of sleep timing and that a country's average bedtime, rather than its wake time, was what predicted sleep duration.
The countries who get the least amount of sleep are Singapore and Japan, with an average of 7 hours and 24 minutes, with the Netherlands getting the most sleep at 8 hours and 12 minutes. Middle-aged men were more likely than other age groups and genders to have a bad night's sleep, the data showed.
The team found that the biological cues we receive around bedtimes were "weakened or ignored for societal reasons", meaning average bedtime is delayed, subsequently "truncating individual's sleep duration".
The data was gathered via Entrain, an app that was initially developed to better understand the effects of jet lag. The app recommended "optimal lighting schedules" to help people adjust to different time zones. Users could also opt in to a research programme that sent their sleep data to the team.
"Although circadian effects on sleep have been studied extensively, precise characterisation of social influences on sleep remains elusive," the team wrote. "Quantifying these social effects is the next frontier in sleep research." "The recent revolution in smartphone technology allows us to study these social effects on a large scale, enabling fast and inexpensive data acquisition from many users and countries," the researchers continued.
The team said the technology would provide a better understanding of sleep patterns and the effects that they have on our health. "Advancing technology and wearables will soon increase the already substantial amount of human data available and will enable us to gain further insights into the toll that sleep deprivation is having on the population," they explained.
Lack of sleep has been linked to a number of health problems including depression, weight gain and even cancer. An Oxford University study recently found that people are missing out on "at least one hour of sleep per night", something that can lead to mental and physical health problems.
In 2014, researchers found that the use of "light-emitting screens" before bed can cause disrupted, poor-quality sleep.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
