A 2022 international study reveals how sleep habits change throughout life depending on our age and how they differ between countries.
- The average duration of sleep varies from one period of our lives to another.
- Adults sleep 7 hours on average, women a little more than men.
- Sleep duration varies in different regions of the world.
A study, carried out by researchers from the Catholic University of Louvain, the University of East Anglia and the University of Lyon, published in Nature Communications, shows that sleep duration decreases at the start of adulthood until age 33, then stabilizes and increases from age 53. The period of our lives when sleep is shortest is therefore between 25 and 35 years old.
For their work, the researchers analyzed data from 730,187 volunteers from 63 different countries. They played a mobile game, called “Sea Hero Quest,” designed for neuroscience research — particularly Alzheimer’s disease — that highlights differences in spatial navigation abilities.
On average, adults around the world sleep 7 hours per night
In addition to completing tasks testing navigation skills, people playing the game must answer questions useful for neuroscience research, including sleep habits. The researchers found that adults in the study sample slept an average of 7.01 hours per night, with women sleeping an average of 7.5 minutes more than men.
The scientists found that the youngest participants in the sample (at least 19 years old) were the ones who slept the most, and that sleep duration gradually decreased throughout the 20s and early 20s. the thirties then stabilized until the early fifties before increasing again. The results were similar for men and women, regardless of country and education level. The study authors believe that the decline in sleep in midlife is partly due to the demands of childcare and work life.
Sleep duration differs between countries
Professor of psychology and language sciences at the Catholic University of Louvain, Hugo Spiers, who co-led the study, said in a communicated : “Previous studies have found associations between age and sleep duration, but ours is the first large study to identify these three distinct phases across the lifespan.” “We found that across the world, people sleep less in middle adulthood, but average sleep duration varies from region to region and country to country”he detailed.
People who reported sleeping the most (20 to 40 minutes of extra sleep per night) came from Eastern European countries, such as Albania, Slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic, while those who reported sleeping the most the fewest live in Southeast Asian countries, such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Furthermore, people located in countries close to the equator tend to sleep a little less.
