Wednesday, March 08, 2006

How Many Are Sleepless?

The pharmaceutical industry wants to know. And the American Time Use Survey has the answer. On an average night, 3.7 percent of Americans aged 15 or older experience sleeplessness. That's 8.5 million people tossing and turning each night. Do the multiplication and you get something like 3 billion nights of sleeplessness each year in the United States, according to unpublished data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' American Time Use Survey.

The average American gets 8.6 hours of sleep a night (including time spent tossing and turning), with teenagers getting the most (9.5 hours) and 45-to-54-year-olds the least (8.2 hours). Who is most likely to be sleepless? Women aged 65 and older.

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