Sleep becoming luxury year on year; India is sleeping lesser finds Centuary-Wavemaker Sleep Survey on World Sleep Day

How important is your sleep? If you ask anyone today on World Sleep Day (March 13^th, 2020), whether in urban or rural or to a youngster or a middle-aged, you are likely to hear Sleep is a very essential part of your well-being. However, despite this understanding do we sleep enough or at least peacefully. The answer is ‘NO’ as people in 10 cities across India including Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Kochi, Ahmedabad, Bhubaneshwar, Indore, Vishakhapatnam and Raipur revealed when asked. The survey – In Search of Better Sleep 2020 by Centuary Mattresses and Wavemaker did across various cities to understand attitudes, perceptions, and behaviours around sleep and other issues. It found that it is not only the duration but the quality of the sleep and various factors leading to distractions have been a major concern growing year on year.

Overall, in the 10 cities, the survey found that collectively hours of sleep have come down in most of the cities. In 2018 people slept 7.66 hours on weekend and 7.48 hours on weekdays which has drastically come down to 6.85 hour on weekends and 6.76 hour on weekdays.

This brings forth the fact that majority of the people are not able to sleep for the required 8 hours as per health experts. Looking at the gender-wise sleep duration, the findings are more worrying with the younger women (25-35 years) sleeping for 6.60 hours on weekends and 6.97 hours on weekdays in 2019 which was 7.70 hours and 7.43 hours respectively in the year 2018. Compared to them, the younger male slept for 6.73hours on weekdays and 6.58 Hours on weekends in 2019 instead of 7.66 Hours on weekdays and 7.50 Hours on weekdays in 2018.

The duration of the sleep of the people in Section A (higher income) has also reduced to 6.74 Hours on weekends and 6.75 Hours on weekdays in 2019 when compared to 7.68 hours and 7.5 a year in 2018. Whereas there hasn’t been a much change noticed in the case of Section B (Middle income) with 7.46 Hours on weekends and 6.84 Hours on weekdays in 2019 against 7.45 hours and 7.29 hours a year before.

The data suggests that while people are waking up to the reality that sleep is fundamentally important, for most people, achieving quality sleep is still out of reach. The usage of Laptops, Tablets, and Smartphones continues to be the biggest deterrent in sleep on time with 47% people voting for it. Worrying about work and finances related issues also delays the sleep of around 15% people surveyed.

The irregular sleeping hours and the surface have resulted in 42% of respondents in 2019 mentioning having Back pain, grown from 39% in 2018. In fact, due to deterioration in the quality as well as the duration of sleep one out of every fifth person (22%) mentioned that they do not feel rested on most days after waking up. Around 38% also said that they feel sleepy at least 3 times in the day-time during a week.

While Chennai continues to lead the Sleeplessness in the country, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar, and Ahmedabad recorded the issue at the least which was held by Hyderabad in 2018. 

The survey recorded that 45% people are being awake in the night due to either watching shows on TV, Laptops, Tablets, & Phone. The percentage has decreased by 8% with the 2018 survey report recording it at 53%. The usage of the smartphone for checking social media has also come down to 35% in 2019 from 46% a year back. However, work and finance related issues are continuing to be a significant reason for keeping 33% of people awake at night.

While announcing the details of the survey report, Mr. Uttam Malani, Executive Director – Centuary Mattresses said, “This data suggests that while people are waking up to the reality that sleep is fundamentally important, for most people, achieving quality sleep is still out of reach. Various factors are depriving the people of the quality and duration of their sleep. If we want to take sleep seriously and address the social and emotional aspects of poor sleep, we must begin to demonstrate that we can address these problems in both easy and meaningful ways. Centuary, being India’s Sleep Specialist, with this survey wants to raise the awareness of quality sleep and the benefits it offers to the hardworking Indians by using accessible and affordable sleep solutions”.