They say New York is "the city that never sleeps." Well, that's not exactly accurate, but New Yorkers still probably don't get enough sleep. That's pretty much what you would expect for a city known for its fast pace and constant activity, but how much do New Yorkers sleep compared to people in other major cities like San Francisco, Paris and Tokyo? It turns out the sleeping patterns of people in each city are as unique as the cities themselves.
The Wall Street Journal recently analyzed some data released to them by Jawbone, the company behind the food, sleep and activity-tracking wristband UP. The data comes from hundreds of thousands of UP users from cities all over the world. So what did they find, you ask?
For one, no one in any city is getting enough sleep. Users in Melbourne, Australia got the most sleep out of any city in the data with an average of seven hours and five minutes per night. Those in Tokyo got the least amount of sleep with five hours and 46 minutes on average. Users in Denver got the most sleep out of any American city with an average of seven hours and two minutes a night, while users in San Antonio got the least with an average of six hours and 40 minutes a night. However, The Wall Street Journal points out that users in almost all of the cities received less than the seven hours of sleep a night recommended by the Centers for Disease Control. So we're all basically failing at this sleep thing.
The data also shows that people in different cities have different lifestyles. Since each city has its own culture, laws and general way of doing things, it's not really surprising that their sleep patterns would differ based on all of that. The Wall Street Journal found that users in metropolitan areas, such as New York and San Francisco, have their activity show up in a grid-like pattern when visually mapped out. They wake up early on weekdays, move a little during the day (and more so on the weekend) and sleep in on the weekends. They also go to bed later and later each weekday. Sunday is the day they find themselves going to sleep the earliest. The Wall Street Journal compares those cities to Orlando and Beijing, who have graphics with less distinct patterns in their sleep and activity. Overall, people in Beijing seem to be much less active in the afternoon than those in the other three cities.
Finally, The Wall Street Journal found that New Year's Day is both the most active and laziest day of the year for New Yorkers. By looking at an entire year's worth of the data for that city, New Year's Day stood out because on that day, half of the users were still awake at 2 a.m., compared to 10 percent of users being awake at that time during the rest of the year. At 11 a.m. on that same day, almost a quarter of all users are still asleep, compared to five percent normally. Similar results appeared for Beijing around the Chinese New Year at the end of January.
There are a few caveats that should be kept in mind when taking all of this data in. One is that this isn't a representative sample, just a sample of UP users who bought the device, which can cost up to $150. The accuracy of activity-tracking wristbands has also been up for debate, and The Wall Street Journal notes that UP users have to push a button on the wristband when they fall asleep and wake up, which might not always reliably reflect when they actually do those activities.
Still, the results are interesting, and anything that could possibly encourage us to improve our sleeping habits is never a bad thing.
