Using data from the Apple Heart and Movement Study collected by the Apple Watch, the researchers say most people get little to no sleep every night. The study, published this month by Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is based on sleep data collected from more than 42,000 Apple Watch users.
Apple Watch sleep tracking study
According to ABC News, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital analyzed more than 2.9 million sleep nights of Apple Watch users. They found that only 31% of these people get at least seven hours of sleep a night, which is the minimum recommended for healthy adults.
The American Heart Association recommends seven to nine hours of sleep a night. Not getting at least seven hours of sleep can put you at risk for “cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline and dementia, depression, obesity, and high blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol.”
The researchers collected their data as part of the Apple Heart and Movement Study. Apple first announced this study back in 2019, and anyone can participate using the Apple Health app or the Apple Research app on their iPhone.
Using this data, the researchers were able to come up with a number of interesting data:
On weekdays, people go to bed before 12:00 pm 66.4% of the time, but this number drops to 56.6% on weekends. Washington DC had the highest proportion of people who slept more than 7 hours at 38.3%. Hawaii ranked lowest with 24.2%. For participants who shared at least 10 nights of sleep data (42,455 participants in total), the average sleep time per person was 6 hours and 27 minutes. Despite state-level differences, across all states, less than 40% of residents met the AHA’s recommended sleep duration.
This is just the first part of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital study. The researchers say that the second part of the Life’s Essential 8 series will be published soon.
In the meantime, let us know what you think of these results in the comments. Do you use Apple Watch for sleep tracking? If yes, what results do you see?
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