Health and Healthcare

This Is What Makes People Lose the Most Sleep

OcusFocus / Getty Images

How much sleep do people need? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), sleep requirements vary by age. A child aged 3 to 5 years old needs 10 hours to 13 hours. A person 65 or older needs 7 to 8 hours.

What are known as “sleep disorders” can have serious consequences. Some of these disorders include insomnia and sleep apnea (also known as snoring). Among the most dangerous consequences are drowsy driving, a significant cause of accidents. The CDC data also shows that the amount of sleep people get varies from state to state and country to county.

A new list of the major reasons people lose sleep from mattress maker and retailer PlushBeds is based on data from 1,003 respondents queried through Amazon MTurk. Of those participants, 56% were men and 44% were women.

The foundation of the study was “Whether it’s politics, public health, personal finance, or family relationships, there’s no shortage of issues to be concerned about. The average person only has so much mental bandwidth, so it makes sense that something—in this case, sleep—has to give.”

The most common sleep stressor was “current political events,” which affected 65.9% of those polled. The portion of people who worry about this and do not get adequate sleep was 30.4%.

Next on the list of concerns was personal finances at 60.9% of those asked. Of these, 34.3% do not get adequate sleep. The list also includes worries about problems related to COVID-19 and the stock market.

People were also divided into categories of when sleep disturbances happen. Of these, 50.7% had trouble getting to sleep, 49.6% get up at night and 49.0% cannot stay asleep.

These are the 20 most common sleep stressors:

  • Current political events (65.9%)
  • Personal finances (60.9%)
  • Political leadership (60.0%)
  • Unvaccinated individuals (55.5%)
  • Supply chain issues (54.6%)
  • Family relationships (54.3%)
  • Work-life balance (53.1%)
  • Personal health issues (51.7%)
  • Holiday spending (49.7%)
  • Searching for a new job (49.4%)
  • Partner or significant other (48.4%)
  • Contracting COVID-19 (46.6%)
  • Housing markets (45.8%)
  • Upcoming holiday events (45.3%)
  • Vaccination mandates (44.6%)
  • Current job market (44.0%)
  • Children (43.7%)
  • Getting the COVID-19 vaccine (40.05%)
  • Favorite sports teams (39.2%)
  • Cryptocurrency markets (39.2%)
  • Stock market (38.7%)
  • NFT market (35.9%)

Click here to see America’s most sleep-deprived city.

Take This Retirement Quiz To Get Matched With An Advisor Now (Sponsored)

Are you ready for retirement? Planning for retirement can be overwhelming, that’s why it could be a good idea to speak to a fiduciary financial advisor about your goals today.

Start by taking this retirement quiz right here from SmartAsset that will match you with up to 3 financial advisors that serve your area and beyond in 5 minutes. Smart Asset is now matching over 50,000 people a month.

Click here now to get started.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.

AI Portfolio

Discover Our Top AI Stocks

Our expert who first called NVIDIA in 2009 is predicting 2025 will see a historic AI breakthrough.

You can follow him investing $500,000 of his own money on our top AI stocks for free.