Global Sleep Crisis' Data Collected From Smartphone App

By Jenn Loro - 09 May '16 12:08PM

A new study reveals people's sleeping patterns across the world based on app data. The research also warns that sleep deprivation is now a growing health concern.

The researchers aim to gain more insight as to how cultural pressures impact people's biological rhythms. The study involved a careful assessment of people's sleeping habits across different cultures in mostly developed countries.

"Biological cues around bedtime are either weakened or ignored for societal reasons, thereby leading individuals to delay their bedtime and truncate their sleep duration as a result," the study said as published in the scientific journal Science Advances.

Using the Entrain app, scientists at the University of Michigan collected data from around 6, 000 respondents who were asked to share details of their sleeping patterns like sleeping and wake-up time, the amount of light they were exposed to while slumbering, and other pertinent information like age and gender.

After assessing the data, the researchers conclude that people from countries like Germany, Japan and Brazil didn't have enough slumber based on doctor-recommended number of sleeping hours. Australia and New Zealand, on the other hand, were lucky enough to hit an average of eight hours each night.

"Society is pushing us to stay up late, our [body] clocks are trying to get us up earlier and in the middle the amount of sleep is being sacrificed; that's what we think is going on in global sleep crisis," said Prof Daniel Forger, one of the study authors as quoted by BBC News.

According to RT News, sleep deprivations is linked to a heightened risk of obesity, diabetes, and even cardiovascular diseases. This is not the first time that lack of sleep is being tied to a number of health concerns. Previous studies had also concluded that not having enough slumber is also connected with stress and hypertension.

While failing to reach the recommended hours of sleep is bad, getting more than eight hours of sleep is not good either as it may increase the likelihood of dying from heart-related illnesses, scientists found out.