Humans don't hibernate, of course, but people in states that have colder winters do tend to sleep for more hours nightly than those who live in warmer, sunnier climes, researchers say.
Using an app named Sleep Cycle, researchers gathered data on the sleeping habits of more than 140,000 Americans from Jan. 1 to 31 of this year.
They found people living in snowy northern states such as Wyoming, Montana and North and South Dakota slept the most during the month, averaging 7 hours and 20 minutes nightly.
They slept around 13 minutes longer than people in southern states including Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and South Carolina who logged an average sleep time of 7 hours and 7 minutes, the researchers recorded.
Who slept the least? That would be folks in Hawaii, where January's average temperature is 70 degrees F. They got right around 7 hours of sleep, the popular sleep tracking app showed.
Colorado is full of sleepyheads, apparently, as people there slept more than anybody -- around 7 hours and 23 minutes nightly.
Some sleep experts cautioned against reading too much into the result, pointing out that the study population is not entirely representative of each state because it only included users of the Sleep Cycle app.
They also noted that January was the only period sampled, so the study cannot indicate whether that month's sleep patterns are any different from any other period, summertime for example.
Still, they say, the suggestion that cold, wintry conditions often see people sleeping longer is in line with some previous studies.
"Many people report that they feel tired and want to sleep more during the winter," says Brant Hasler, a sleep expert and professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved in the Sleep Cycle study.
That's mostly due to shorter winter days with their fewer daylight hours, which affect people's internal circadian rhythm -- their body clocks -- and creates a desire for more sleep, he says.
The change in the number of daylight hours from winter to summer is greater the farther away from the equator you live, he points out, so a restful night's sleep -- in terms of hours -- "may vary depending on the time of year and where you live."
If you feel you need some extra sleep during wintertime, it's best to give into the desire, Hasler recommends, by going to bed a little earlier or starting your day a little later, if your work schedule can accommodate that.
