When I was younger, I never understood what the big deal was about sleep. I’d hear older people complain about not sleeping good and I’d think “I never have a problem!” I had no problem as a late teen getting by on three or four hours of sleep a night.
I guess I am officially “older” now because my sleep patterns range from “like a baby” to “not at all.” Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania recently did a study that showed the states that are most sleep deprived. Southern states ranked highest, which doesn’t surprise me. The study showed that states that have a problem with obesity are the ones that ranked highly on the sleep deprivation scale and we all know southern people love their fried, fatty foods. As a born-and-raised southerner, I think I can safely say that, although many of us are trying to change our ways.
The study looked at 157,319 people spread across 36 states. The research found that Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and West Virginia ranked highest for those with sleep disturbance and daytime fatigue.
My home state of Tennessee feel in the group of states with the second highest sleep fatigue. Tennessee was joined by Missouri, Indiana, South Carolina, Delaware, and Utah. States that fell somewhere in the middle were Texas, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Wyoming, Maine, Virginia, Rhode Island, Georgia, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and Florida.
People in states of North Dakota, Alaska, California, New Hampshire, Montana, Vermont, Minnesota, and Iowa are doing good sleep wise.
In addition, they noted the states (or territories) with the least amount of daytime fatigue. Ranked #1 for least daytime fatigue was the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Left out of the study completely was Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.
The study generated a sleep map showing the sleep deprived states, which can be viewed here.