Are Adults Getting More or Less Sleep in the US?

According to a recent survey and study, American adults are getting less sleep now than ever. Between 2004 and 2012 Americans reported relatively stable cases of short sleep – basically less than 6 hours of sleep a night – but the numbers have been increasing since 2013.

The study notes that this trend is especially noticeable in Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks, which leads to debate on the racial disparity of the American population. What is attributable to this increase of the number of people getting less than 6 hours of sleep a night?

The most common explanation for this is a change in lifestyle. Those who work more than one job a day are naturally awake for longer, and so they are likely to get fewer hours of sleep. There is also the case of baby boomers who never really had a proper orientation to sleep patterns. They may not have introduced those patterns to their children, and so a whole generation does not have specific bedtimes to adhere to.

Millenials are even worse as they spend most of their time on technology and so the sleeping patterns are destroyed further. They are resulting to stimulants such as Ritalin to stay awake for study and partying.