“Not being able to sleep is terrible. You have the misery of having partied all night… without the satisfaction.” ~ Lynn Johnston
Most people experience some bouts of insomnia; that’s normal. But when it becomes persistent, then it’s a health concern. “About 25 to 30 million Americans have insomnia at any given time—whether it’s acute or chronic,” said Dr. Ilene Rosen, a sleep medicine physician in Philadelphia, according to the American Medical Association. It’s not a pleasant thing, either. It’s definitely not like the 1993 movie Sleepless in Seattle starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, where some sleepless nights end up bringing two people together via a radio show. A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) showed that nearly three in four adults in the US report experiencing fatigue, and women and younger adults claim the highest rates.
Sleepless Report
NCHS conducted a study of around 27,000 adults who reported often experiencing fatigue. The study was published on September 3 and determined that women, young people, and indigenous Americans are the most likely to be affected by fatigue.
Fatigue is fairly common. According to NCHS’s study, about 71.5% of adults said they had felt very tired or exhausted at least some days during the previous three months. About 55% experienced it some days, 10.7% most days, and 5.9% said they suffered from it daily. Broken down, this means about one in six adults experience frequent fatigue.
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And the numbers don’t stop there. Women experienced it more often than men, 20% to 13%, respectively. Although the report doesn’t go into why different demographics and genders are more sleepless than others, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) 2024 Time Use Survey found that women averaged considerably more time doing household activities. They spent an average of 2.34 hours per day on such chores while men averaged 1.67 hours. Women were also more likely to perform these duties on any given day: 86.6% versus 73.9% for men. Also, females were more likely to hold multiple jobs in 2024: 5.8% versus 4.7% of men. Perhaps they were just too tired to sleep.
American Indians and Alaska Native adults represented the highest group with 25.5%, while 18% of whites, 17.3% of blacks, 12.9% of Hispanic, and 9.1% of Asian adults reported frequent fatigue.
Some Possible Causes
The NCHS study only gave numbers, not reasons or solutions for so many sleepless Americans. For the younger age group between 18 and 34 years old, there’s a science angle called “social jet lag.” The American Academy of Sleep Medicine describes it as a mismatch between someone’s internal biological clock and the schedule they keep due to work, school, and other obligations. Adolescents and young adults tend to have later bedtimes, so when their biological clocks tell them to stay awake later, but their schedules require them to wake up early, their bodies can get confused. It’s like living in one time zone biologically while your job expects you to live in another.
Besides commonly known or suspected agitators like stress and financial concerns, there are plenty of other suggested causes for suffering from chronic fatigue. The economy has forced many people to work more than one job with steady eight-hour days. Another BLS report from 2024 discovered that 8.4 million Americans held more than one job. This was up from about 8.1 million the previous year.
And where you sleep matters. We’re not talking about a bedroom or cozied up on the couch, but instead geographically. According to the report, about 14.5% of people living in large central metropolitan areas complained of frequent fatigue, meaning they felt “very tired or exhausted” most days or every day during the previous three months. Along the fringe of metropolitan areas, 15.6% complained of being sleepless, while 17.9% claimed the same in medium and small metropolitan areas. Moving further from the hustle and bustle of cities, 20.5% of people in nonmetropolitan areas reported suffering from frequent fatigue.
Apparently, even moving away from the noise and bustle of the city to be serenaded by quiet nights and chirping crickets doesn’t spare everyone from fatigue. It affects Americans of every age and in every corner of the country, some more than others.
