This Fitbit survey reveals that Indians are the world’s second worst sleepers

Along with diet and exercise, good sleep plays a critical role in health and overall wellbeing, from protecting against cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity, to boosting neurocognitive functions, mental health and longevity, according to the Institute of Medicine, (US) Committee on Sleep Medicine and Research.

Ahead of World Sleep Day, Fitbit revealed that Indians are some of the poorest sleepers in the world, clocking in an average of 6.55 hours a night. The sleep statistics, based on aggregated and anonymous Fitbit data from January to December 2016, also revealed that Asians get less sleep on average than their American and European counterparts. Of the 18 countries covered by the data, people in New Zealand, Australia, and the UK get the most sleep on average per night.

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Meanwhile, a recent study Need for Sleep found that Indian teens who had insufficient sleep did worse cognitively than teens on the recommended amount of sleep of their age group.

In order to provide users with deeper insights on their sleep, Fitbit is introducing two dynamic sleep tools that will be launched later this month, Sleep Stages and Sleep Insights, providing information on sleep quality and advice on how to improve sleep patterns.

Sleep Stages, which was developed by a panel of sleep experts over the last two years, utilizes heart rate variability to estimate the amount of time spent in light, deep and REM sleep, as well as time awake each night, to better understand sleep quality.

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Sleep Insights, which is based on Fitbit data gained from over 3 billion nights of logged sleep, provides personalized guidance on how to improve sleep for better overall health.

By better knowing sleep quality and patterns, users can make lifestyle changes to improve sleep over time, such as diet, exercise, winding down before bed and keeping a consistent sleep schedule. Tracking sleep patterns could also help identify variations that can be indicative of other issues.

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Sleep Duration Rankings (Based on aggregated and anonymous Fitbit data from Jan – Dec 2016)

Country- Sleep Duration (Hours)
1. Japan- 6.35
2. India- 6.55
3. Singapore- 6.56
4. Taiwan- 6.56
5. Republic of Korea- 6.56
6. Hong Kong- 6.61
7. Colombia- 6.75
8. Mexico- 6.76
9. Chile- 6.80
10. Spain- 6.91
11. Italy- 6.94
12. United States- 6.99
13. Canada- 7.05
14. Germany- 7.07
15. France- 7.08
16. Australia- 7.15
17. United Kingdom- 7.16
18. New Zealand- 7.25