When you're out celebrating a holiday or watching a potentially historic sporting event, the last thing you want to do is go to sleep and miss it all. Apparently, much of the world agrees.
The activity tracker company Jawbone recently had a look at the world's sleep patterns during 2014. It turns out that holidays and sporting events have a major impact on the way we sleep.
Using data from one million people that track their sleep using UP by Jawbone, data scientists at the company looked at how certain times of the year influenced when people around the world went to sleep and woke up. The 11 countries Jawbone analyzed were the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, China, Japan, Australia and the United Arab Emirates.
Across the board, people go to sleep the latest on New Year's Eve, with the exception of the Chinese, who go to sleep the latest during the Chinese New Year in February. So no surprises here.
What was more unexpected though is how much sporting events influence the sleeping patterns of people all over the world. At least it was for me, someone who really only watches major sporting events like the Super Bowl. For instance, Canadians awoke much earlier to watch the country's men's hockey team win Olympic gold in Sochi, Russia on Feb. 23, 2014. The World Cup also disrupted sleep around the world, especially in Europe where the matches broadcast from Sao Paulo, Brazil aired late at night in this part of the world.
As for the U.S., holidays determined when we went to sleep and awoke the next morning. In 2014, we went to sleep later the night before major holidays, such as Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day, and awoke later the day of. And the hated day in Spring when we have to turn our clocks forward an hour for Daylight Saving Time is in fact a very evil ritual. Americans lost roughly 13 minutes of sleep the night that Daylight Saving Time hit.
What will 2015 bring? Well, since national, religious and cultural holidays tend to take place around the same time every year, these sleep patterns are likely to look similar. However, with no Olympics or World Cup in 2015, there will definitely be some changes. Maybe the world will actually get more sleep since these major global games won't be captivating audiences. That is, until the Summer Olympics arrives in 2016. Then we'll all be sleepless zombies once again.
Image: Tony Alter / Flickr
[H/T The Atlantic]
