5 Sleep Trends During Quarantine

Sleep looks a little different to many of us right now. There’s no question that COVID-19 and the subsequent effects on the economy and our daily routines has all of us on edge. Even before the virus, the American Sleep Association reported that 50-70 million Americans were suffering from a sleep disorder.

But with everything up in the air because of the virus, just how much have everyone’s sleep habits been impacted?

It’s still early, but data suggests that the answer is quite a lot.

While it’s been well-documented that Americans have spent their time in quarantine searching for things like banana bread, whipped coffee, toilet paper, and even pulse oximeters, we wanted to know what, if anything, has changed about the way people are sleeping.

With our research complete, we uncovered five sleep-related search trends that have spiked in popularity since quarantine began:

1. ”sleep tips”
2. ”how to nap”
3. ”all nighter”
4. ”how to dream”
5. ”how to lucid dream”

Surprised by any of these? Breaking it down, it seems that Americans are divided into three camps: those trying to sleep more, those trying to sleep less, and those trying to use sleep to escape from everything going on. Keep reading to learn more about each trend and where it’s being searched.

How We Spotted the Trends

This one was pretty straightforward. Using Google Trends, we reviewed a variety of sleep-related terms to see which, if any, had spikes in search volume since quarantine kicked in around mid-March. The five trends above stood out because they not only spiked in popularity right as quarantine kicked in, but they also say a lot about how our sleep has been impacted by the virus.

Once we had found our terms, we reviewed the relative popularity of each one, ranked 0-100 by Google Trends, and identified which term has had the highest relative popularity in each state during quarantine.

The resulting map revealed some fascinating insights.

More COVID-19 Cases = More Sleepless Nights

The trend that was immediately clear was that the more cases of COVID-19 a state has, the less sleep they appear to be getting.

As of the publishing of this article, the seven states with the most confirmed cases of COVID-19 have all been searching for “all nighter” more than any other sleep term during quarantine. In addition, all but two of the states in the top 18 have been searching most for either “all nighter” or “how to nap” during quarantine.

It makes sense that a high number of cases paired with the stress and anxiety of quarantine could make it hard to rest, especially for doctors, nurses, and other essential employees working long shifts on the front lines. From the looks of it, it appears they’re trying to get by on little to no sleep when possible.

Fewer COVID-19 Cases = Fewer Sleepless Nights

As you might expect, the inverse is true as well. States with fewer cases appear to be sleeping better through the night.

Right now, no states in the bottom eight for total cases have been searching for “all nighter” more than the other terms. This is also true of all but two of the bottom 15 states.

Instead, most of these states are searching for information on general sleep tips or how to dream while they sleep. This is no surprise, since areas with fewer cases have been able to maintain more normal routines and sleeping schedules, and it is especially true for Oklahoma, Arkansas, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Wyoming, five of only eight states that didn’t issue a stay-at-home order.

Check out the full breakdown by state below.

Trend and Case Count by State

Sources

• Google Trends. "Explore what the world is searching." https://trends.google.com/trends/?geo=US. 30 April 2020.
• Worldometer. “United States.” https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/. 26 May 2020.
• Los Angeles Times. “These eight states haven’t issued stay-at-home orders to fight the coronavirus outbreak.” https://www.latimes.com/. 4 May 2020.