New Delhi: Fifty-two percent of Indians say their sleep patterns have changed after the Covid pandemic, a national survey has found.
The question received 11,541 responses, and those who answered in the affirmative said that they were sleeping differently with “Covid becoming prevalent”.
The survey by social media community platform LocalCircle tried to understand whether Covid citizens were getting uninterrupted sleep over the years, or any changes were noticed.
The survey received over 32,000 responses from 322 districts in India. Sixty-one percent of the respondents were men and 39 percent were women. Forty-nine percent of the respondents were from Tier 1, 30% from Tier 2 and 21% from Tier 3 and 4 rural districts.
LocalCircles asked respondents: “How many hours of uninterrupted sleep do you usually get at night?”
To this end, of 20,549 responses, only 6% said “8-10 hours”, 38% said “6-8 hours”, 27% said “4-6 hours” and 23% said “up to 4 hours”. The other 6% of respondents did not say positively about their sleep duration.
Overall, 1 in 2 Indians is getting less than 6 hours of sleep every night, while 1 in 4 is sleeping less than 4 hours.
When asked whether citizens have noticed any change in their sleep patterns over the years with “Covid becoming prevalent”, 7% of the 6,001 responses said, “Yes, my uninterrupted sleep pattern has reduced have”, another 7% said “yes, I have apnea and sleep is frequently disrupted”, 8% said “yes, my sleep needs have increased”, and another 7% said “yes , I have trouble sleeping at first”.
Those who had never suffered from Covid also reported a change. Fifteen percent of respondents said: “Yes, my uninterrupted sleep duration has decreased”, 7% said “I have sleep apnea and sleep is often disrupted”, 8% said “my sleep needs have increased” “I have trouble sleeping at first”, while 3% said “I have trouble sleeping”.
In addition, 10% of citizens said, “Yes, my sleep has become more irregular due to reasons other than COVID”. Overall – in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic – people have reported struggling to sleep, or getting less uninterrupted sleep, or trouble with sleep apnea, among other issues.
Sleep experts say adults need seven or more hours of sleep each night for good health and longevity. However, the survey results suggest that half of our population is not getting the same and is at risk.
New studies have also shown that a person may experience sleep difficulties months or even years after recovering from COVID.
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