More than half (57%) of Americans are snoozers, according to a study by French tech firm Withings, with results showing we spend a total of 3.5 months of our lives hitting the snooze button. The company conducted the same survey in the UK, which showed that Brits have even more difficulties waking up, with 70% admitting to regularly hitting snooze.
Additionally, 58% of the Americans admit to staying in bed for more than 5 minutes every morning, while 64% of Brits do. This equates to Americans individually spending nearly 2 days a year (or 577 million days for the nation as a whole) neither sleeping properly nor awake.
In the study, 57% of Americans reported still feeling tired after a night’s sleep and only 33% defining their wake up experience as good. The study found total sleep time per person to be 6 hours and 48 minutes per night.
The study also found that 76% of Americans wake up abruptly in the morning with the loud sound of an alarm clock, smartphone, or other electronic device. A majority of respondents (79%) said a bad wake up experience can ruin their day, which, in turn, they said affects concentration (51%), work (38%), and well-being (35%). Nearly half (45%) of Americans indicated they think the best way to improve their wake up experience would be to eliminate the alarm entirely and let their body clock wake them up.
To combat snoozing behaviors, Withings recently launched “Aura,” a sleep system it says provides a smooth wake up experience and will mark the “end of the snooze.” A “No More Snooze” campaign was created in conjunction with the product launch. The campaign aims to increase awareness about sleep and well-being, in light of the study finding 57% of Americans were not considering sleep as mandatory for their health.
Withings Aura is not a wearable sleep tracker but rather it’s a sensor that slips under the mattress and works together with a sensitively designed bedside device. The sensor focuses on personal patterns (body movements, breathing cycles, and heart rate), and the bedside device screens the environment for noise pollution, room temperature, and light levels, the company says.
Cedric Hutchings, Withings founder, says in a release, “While people in the United States seem to be fans of hitting the snooze button, what they don’t realize is that this extended lie-in is in fact making everyone more tired. At Withings, we are dedicated to improving the overall sleep experience, and our all-new Withings Aura does just this, enabling users to both fall asleep and wake up based on their body’s natural pattern, rather than being interrupted by a continual snooze alarm.”
