A good night’s sleep is essential for many reasons, including better focus, mental health, and energy levels. But across the UK, it seems as though many of us are struggling to get a full 8 hours of sleep, but what are the biggest causes of this?
We’ve surveyed over 2,000 people to identify some of the issues that may be causing us to have sleepless nights.
How much sleep does the UK get?
Only 1 in 4 Brits actually get the recommended 8 hours of sleep per night; almost 20% get less than 6 hours per night, and a lucky 4% of the UK get more than 9 hours per night.
The region of the UK with the worst sleep, according to our research, is Scotland, averaging only 5 hours of sleep per night – this is 3 hours less than the recommended average!
But what prevents us getting our full 8 hours?
What affects our sleep routine?
Our survey revealed that the factors that people felt impacted their sleep the most were screen time (70%) and feeling stressed or overwhelmed (67%).
This doesn’t come as much of a surprise when the results revealed that over half (52%) said they spend more than 7 hours a day looking at screens.
Four in 10 of those surveyed also said that they felt their sleep has worsened over the past 18 months due to lockdown – with most of us having nothing to do but look at our screens, this obviously makes sense that our sleep has worsened.
We spoke to Martin Rothery, Sanomentologist and Dream Architect who said the following: “Screen time is not so much the issue, as what it’s being used for. Continuing to check work, email, social media, or even watching TV or playing games where danger is present (horror films, for example, the mind has no separation of fantasy and reality), will all add to the feelings of stress and difficulties of sleeping.
My recommendations are to keep social media and news to the minimum and allow yourself to focus on the positive aspects of your life.
Allow yourself to nap whenever you can and do things you enjoy to allow your mind to relax and de-stress. If the sleep pattern becomes a problem, if it begins to affect your daily life, then seek help from a professional to help clear out the issues the mind perceives.“
What are the symptoms of a poor sleep routine?
When asked what symptoms they experience on a regular basis, the results were as follows:
- Fatigue – 59.26%
- Lock of focus/energy – 59.26%
- Feeling stressed or anxious – 59.26%
- Cravings for junk food – 55.56%
- Aches and pains – 51.58%
- Poor attention span – 48.15%
- Breakouts – 37.04%
- Worsened memory – 37.04%
- Short temper – 33.33%
Leon Zhao, Co-Founder of Jasmine Silk, said, “A good night’s sleep is essential for many reasons, including better focus, mental health, and energy levels.
Lockdown has also seen an increase in reliance on technology, be it our TV screens, laptops while working from home or our mobile phones. These are hugely to blame for the sleep problem across the country and ideally shouldn’t be used before bed.”
For tips on improving your sleep, check out our latest blog post here!
