By Robin Foster HealthDay Reporter<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/b><\/p>\n
MONDAY, April 15, 2024 (HealthDay News) — While more than half of Americans say they would feel better with more sleep, only 42% say they are getting as much shut-eye as they need, a new poll finds.<\/p>\n
“This is nearly a reversal of the figures last measured in 2013, when 56% of Americans got the sleep they needed and 43% did not,” the poll authors wrote.<\/p>\n
Women under the age of 50 are particularly tired, the Gallup poll<\/a> released Monday showed. The latest tally finds only 36% of women say they get enough sleep, compared to 48% of men.<\/p>\n Exactly how much sleep are people getting?<\/p>\n Only 26% said they got eight or more hours, while just over half (53%) reported getting six to seven hours. Twenty percent said they got five hours or less, a jump from the 14% who reported getting the least amount of sleep during the 2013 poll.<\/p>\n The poll doesn t delve into why so many Americans are coming up short on sleep.<\/p>\n But what s notable, according to Gallup senior researcher Sarah Fioroni<\/a>, is the shift toward more Americans thinking they would benefit from more sleep and also the jump in the number of those saying they get five hours of sleep or less a night.<\/p>\n That five hours or less category … was almost not really heard of in 1942, Fioroni told the Associated Press<\/em>. There s almost nobody that said they slept five hours or less. <\/p>\n In recent years, there also has been this pervasive belief about how sleep was unnecessary — that it was this period of inactivity where little to nothing was actually happening and that took up time that could have been better used, Joseph Dzierzewski<\/a>, vice president for research and scientific affairs at the National Sleep Foundation, told the AP<\/em>.<\/p>\n It s only relatively recently that the importance of sleep to physical, mental and emotional health has taken hold, he noted.<\/p>\n So why are Americans staying awake too long? One likely reason is cultural, as millions in this country place a premium on industriousness and productivity, experts said.<\/p>\n It has been a core part of American culture for centuries, Claude Fischer<\/a>, a professor of sociology at the graduate school of the University of California Berkeley, told the AP<\/em>. You could make the argument that it … in the secularized form over the centuries becomes just a general principle that the morally correct person is somebody who doesn t waste their time. <\/p>\n In her research in rural American communities over the years, Washington State sociology professor Jennifer Sherman says a common theme among people she interviewed was the importance of having a solid work ethic. <\/p>\n A key component of American cultural mythology is the idea of being individually responsible for creating our own destinies, she told the AP<\/em>. And that does suggest that if you re wasting too much of your time … that you are responsible for your own failure. <\/p>\n While the poll shows a broad shift in sleep patterns over the past decade,\u00a0living through the pandemic<\/a><\/ins>\u00a0seems to have also significantly shifted people s sleep patterns, the National Sleep Foundation says. <\/p>\n More information<\/strong><\/p>\n Visit the National Institutes of Health for more on sleep<\/a>.<\/p>\n