At Mattressman, we recently conducted a survey to find out how COVID-19 lockdowns have affected our sleep quality, patterns and habits. Our statistics are based on the answers from 700 respondents, revealing that lockdowns have worsened our sleep across multiple areas.
Sure, sleep quality can have a variety of meanings attributed to it. Here, we asked our respondents how satisfied they were with their sleep and whether they believed it improved or worsened.
59% say their sleep quality has worsened in lockdown, with only 3.1% saying it had improved. The remaining respondents said it had stayed the same or fluctuated.
We asked our respondents how much sleep they were getting on average before and during lockdowns.
Before lockdowns were implemented, the average sleep duration of our respondents was 6.8 hours. Already, this is below the 7-9 hours of sleep recommended by experts. Throughout lockdown, our respondent’s sleep duration decreased to 5.7 hours.
Regular sleeping is critical for our circadian rhythm; our internal body clocks. If we have varying times we go to sleep and wake up, it can result in feeling tired and drained throughout the day.
According to our results, 36% of people did not have regular sleeping patterns before the lockdown. This increased to 62% throughout the lockdown.
Sleep inertia is a term that’s not frequently used, which refers to feelings of disorientation, grogginess and drowsiness following waking up. According to sleep experts, this can last anywhere between 10 to 60 minutes.
Before the lockdown, 73.6% of respondents said they had 10 minutes or less of sleep inertia, finding it relatively easy to get up in the morning. Conversely, 26.4% stated it took them any time over 11 minutes.
Interestingly, this flipped during lockdown periods. Respondents with less than 10 minutes of sleep inertia decreased to 47.6%. Our group had 11+ minutes of sleep inertia, almost doubling to 52.4%. Across the board, our respondents found it harder to get out of bed during lockdowns.
When respondents were asked why they think their sleeping patterns and habits may have changed for the better or worse, the most common answers were ‘stress’ and ‘anxiety’. Many elaborated that looking after their children full-time alongside working contributed to this.
On the flip side, respondents who thought their sleep patterns had improved put this down to not needing to wake up so early to travel to work.
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