The Galaxy Watch reveals UK’s top Sleep Animal and 25% of Brits dread bedtime

What you should know

– The Nervous Penguin is the most common sleep persona in the UK, representing those who frequently experience interruptions during sleep
– The average sleep duration has declined across the globe from 7 hours and 3 minutes to 6 hours and 59 minutes
– 22% of Brits say it’s not uncommon that they accidentally snooze while at work
– Reasons for poor sleep efficiency in the UK include staying up late, working too hard, and overindulging in food

Full Story

The lion may be the official animal symbol of Britain, but that’s when the Brits are awake. When they’re asleep, they’re the Nervous Penguin. Alright, maybe it’s time to elaborate on this one and not lose any UK readers right from the start. What we’re dealing with here is possibly the biggest single sleep health study ever undertaken – “Have we been sleeping well?” by Samsung. The report is analyzing 716 million nights of sleep behaviors from Samsung Health users worldwide that track their sleep for two years between 2021 and 2023. We’ve already talked about how, according to the data, sleep is getting worse everywhere and for everyone in the world. Samsung has discovered that the average sleep duration has declined across the globe from 7 hours and 3 minutes to 6 hours and 59 minutes, which is just below the 7-hour threshold recommended by the National Sleep Foundation.

Over a fifth of them (some 22% of adults) say it’s not uncommon that they accidentally snooze while at work. That’s one in five! There are more statistics than that, showing that Brits doze off in the cinema (29%), on the toilet (10%), and even at the club (12%) – the nation likes to sleep, no question about it! But maybe it’s not so much that they like doing it – they need it, because of poor nighttime sleep. If we define sleep efficiency as the amount of time spent in bed relative to the amount of actual sleep, it turns out that in Europe, the UK is the country with the lowest sleep efficiency.

So, the study categorizes various types of sleepers into eight ‘Sleep Animals’ based on sleep patterns (for the data to be gathered, it requires sleep insight from at least 7 days, including 2 days off). The Sleep Animals each represent unique characteristics based on measuring the Galaxy Watch users’ sleep duration, consistency, and awake time – all of which influence sleep quality. For example, the light-sleeping Nervous Penguin is the most common sleep persona in the UK. The Nervous Penguin represents those who maintain healthy sleep rhythms yet frequently experience interruptions during sleep, in turn affecting sleep efficiency. Those are the light sleepers who can be easily rattled while sleeping and may have trouble going back to sleep.

There’s a variety of reasons why the Brits are the sleep efficiency anti-champions of Europe. 45% of the Brits that participated in the study say they stay up too late, with the average bedtime for UK adults being 11:54 PM. Next, some 32% of them say working too hard is stopping them from getting much-needed rest, followed by 25% of adults who say overindulging in food is to blame. Samsung has partnered with Dr Julie Smith to reveal how the Samsung Sleep Animal personas on the Galaxy Watch 6 can be the key to unlocking a better night’s sleep: If you fall asleep during the day without intending to, that is a clear sign of not getting enough sleep at night to stay healthy. This research suggests we could all do with working on improving our poor habits when it comes to our bedtime routines. But to do this we need to have a good understanding of our sleeping habits. From the Sensitive Hedgehog to the Nervous Penguin, the sleep personas on the Galaxy Watch 6 offer an enjoyable lens to monitor your sleeping patterns, alongside actionable tips for better rest.