Feeling tired? So is the rest of the country

In a new study conducted by insurance provider Aviva, Canada ranked as the third most sleep-deprived country in the world — with almost a third of Canadians saying they don’t get enough pillow time.

So who’s sleepier than Canada? The United Kingdom and Ireland, with 37 and 34 per cent of respondents respectively saying they are sleep deprived. Thirteen countries were studied in total — and the United States tied for third with 31 per cent of their residents saying they don’t get enough shut eye.

This is comparable to the study by the Canadian Men’s Health Foundation this past summer which found that 33 per cent of men aged 30-49 were getting, at most, four to six hours of sleep a night. The ParticpAction Report Card discovered 33 per cent of Canadian children are also sleep deprived.

The reason for so many people feeling robbed of their rest? Too much screen time.

“Sometimes a few lifestyle changes are all that’s needed to boost your sleep levels, such as establishing a routine, eating dinner earlier in the night or avoiding TV and mobile phone screens before bed,” says Dr. Doug Wright, medical director at Aviva.

In June, the ParticpAction report had a similar conclusion.

“Because of screens in their bedroom, because of holding their cellphone under their pillow, because they didn’t move very much in that day and frankly are not fatigued, (kids) get a disrupted night’s sleep,” says Dr. Mark Tremblay, lead researcher for the ParticipAction Report Card.

The Aviva study was conducted as part of a U.K. health check, digging into sleep patterns of U.K. residents and discovering that half of the sleep deprived also feel too tired to exercise, with women feeling more lethargic than men.

Daylight saving time was also the main culprit of why residents in the U.K. give up on exercise when the days become shorter.