The Day Of The Week Americans Sleep The Most, According To Research
When do Americans sleep the most, and the least?
Stock-Asso | Shutterstock Turns out that having a case of the Mondays isn't just about dreading another hectic week at work!
In 2015, Sleep Cycle, an app that helps you track sleep, studied data from 941,300 of its users from 50 different countries to learn about just how much the world's sleeping habits differ on a day-to-day basis.
While many of the findings reinforce common presumptions about certain days of the week, some of them might take you by surprise. They found many interesting things including why we despise Mondays.
The reason ... we aren't sleeping soundly on Sunday nights
Americans sleep the least on Sunday nights with an average of seven hours and one minute.
Americans spend a weekly average time of 7 hours and 6 minutes in bed, a weekly average bedtime of 11:54 PM, and a weekly average wake-up time of 7:20 AM.
We're also up and at 'em 21 minutes earlier on Mondays than on other days to get a jump on the workweek grind.
So when are Americans getting the most rest? Saturdays! Instead of partying it up, we're sleeping 28 minutes more on Saturday nights than any other day. (Or if they're up late, we're sleeping in to make up for it.
However, when it comes to sleep quality — meaning fewer wake-ups and restless moments in the middle of the night — an unexpected day takes the cake. We actually sleep best on Wednesday nights, so maybe we should give Hump Day a little more credit.
Of course, sleeping in Sunday makes it harder to hit the sack early that night.
The survey also looked into people's moods each day (since sleep greatly affects that), using a scale of 0 (being the worst) to 100 (being the best).
We're typically somewhere around the 60 range. But ... they found that we're more chipper on — you guessed it — Fridays!
On Mondays, we're at 60.5%, on Tuesdays 60.3%, 60.5% on Wednesdays, and the highest on Fridays and Saturdays with 65.3%, 65.1%, and 60.4% on Sundays.
Our mood was shown to be at 65 knowing that we have the weekend (and more sleep!) to look forward to.
Wondering how else the rest of the world does with their sleeping schedule? Despite Saturday being the clear winner for most countries, Friday is the most popular day for rest for Israel, Sweden, Greece, New Zealand, and Malaysia, and nearly 90 percent of countries surveyed sleep more and wake up later on Saturday compared to any other day of the week.
Nicole Weaver is a senior writer for Showbiz Cheat Sheet whose work has been featured in New York Magazine, Teen Vogue, and more.