Marylanders Racking Up Almost 25 Hours of ‘Sleep Debt’ Per Week During Pandemic

If you feel like you can’t sleep, you’re in good company. Or bad, as the case might be.

Lack of shuteye has been hitting people in Maryland especially hard during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a study.

They’re incurring 24.5 hours of “sleep debt” — described by the National Sleep Foundation as “the difference between the amount of sleep that you need and the amount that you’re actually getting” — per week.

That’s more than three hours a night.

Ocere.com reached out to 3,000 people for its study and found that Marylanders were losing significantly more sleep than the national average of 21.4 hours.

“Contrary to popular belief, sleep debt cannot be re-paid, such as binge sleeping on the weekends,” the company said in a news release. “Much like a credit card debt, sleep debt is one that cannot be easily cleared. Eight restorative hours is the recommended amount of shuteye for adults each night but how often have we been getting this since the start of the pandemic?”

A quarter of those surveyed said their sleep routines have changed since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.

And 37% of people said worrying about the pandemic itself is the main issue keeping them up at night.

Changing sleep patterns, being stuck inside, lack of exercise and, of course, money are causing insomnia.

Ocere has an interactive map of the survey results online.

As part of Maryland Matters’ content sharing agreement with WTOP, we feature this article from Will Vitka. Click here for the WTOP News website.

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