Reading before bed may come with some unanticipated benefits, according to a recent survey.
Mattress and sleep product review site Sleep Junkie took the liberty of surveying 1,000 people about both their sleep habits and bedtime routines—namely, whether or not they read in bed.
Participants who read in bed at night range from those who read once a week to every night: 11 percent of survey takers read one or two nights a week, 12 percent read three or four, 7 percent read five or six, and 8 percent read every single night. Of the crowd getting a few pages in five or more nights a week, the average time spent reading comes out to 43 minutes.
The results don’t lie: Whether they crack open a book three times a month or every night without fail, all respondents said doing so promotes relaxation, reduces stress, induces sleep, centers the mind, and improves sleep quality. All good things. Nearly three quarters of bedtime readers believe they’d have a harder time falling asleep if they didn’t regularly read in bed, and almost everyone (96 percent) would recommend reading before bed to others.
