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The Rich Sleep Efficiently
According to a recent paper in the American Journal of Epidemiology the rich are more efficient sleepers. Not that they sleep fewer hours, in fact they sleep more than the poor, but their sleep latency, the time spent lying in bed trying to get to sleep is lower than for the poor.
Graphic from University of Chicago Magazine.
Me? I have money but I sleep like a pauper.
Hat tip to Robin Hanson.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on September 12, 2006 at 07:06 AM in Science | Permalink
Comments
Is this one of the causes or an effect of them being rich, however? I'd argue for the latter, they don't worry about what to eat tomorrow as much.
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Sep 12, 2006 7:29:22 AM
I think effect. The poorer you are, the more likly you have to keep regular hours at work, so you must sleep on someone elses schedule not your natual sleep patterns.
Posted by: joan at Sep 12, 2006 8:27:02 AM
I think effect too - maybe those with less economic insecurity have less to worry about. There's nothing to keep you tossing and turning like the fear that you can't heat the house in the middle of winter.
Posted by: Ennis at Sep 12, 2006 8:29:56 AM
It could be that the rich eat better and are in general more fit, and that this aids sleep.
Or it could be as simple as age distribution.
Posted by: michael vassar at Sep 12, 2006 8:56:11 AM
Oh, or fewer kids.
Posted by: michael vassar at Sep 12, 2006 8:56:50 AM
Comfort probably plays a role as well. Rich people are likely to have quieter places to live, larger and more sparely populated bedrooms, air conditioning in the summer (this one might be really important), better air quality, and more comfortable beds.
I like Michael Vassar's point about fewer kids a lot.
Posted by: mschrist at Sep 12, 2006 9:22:59 AM
More time in bed and less time sleeping? Obviously, the poor are having more sex.
Posted by: arthur at Sep 12, 2006 9:44:00 AM
arthur: gee, that's a significant flaw in the original article. They really should have controlled for this!
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Sep 12, 2006 9:48:34 AM
Fewer kids...more nannies...
Also, is time in bed watching TV counted? If so, then it's all explained. Poor people are more likely to watch TV in bed as opposed to do other activities that cost money.
Posted by: Battlepanda at Sep 12, 2006 9:49:12 AM
Obesity, stress, poor diet, and other health problems have a pretty big impact on sleep, and are all inversely correlated with income.
OTH, cause and effect could be inverted here. People with naturally lower sleep efficiency are less able to become medical residents, big firm lawyers, etc., and are more likely to fired from their jobs for being late to work.
Posted by: DK at Sep 12, 2006 10:23:00 AM
Holy Just-So Stories, Batman!
Posted by: Bernard Guerrero at Sep 12, 2006 11:29:28 AM
the man in his pants keeps disrupting the sleep of the poor so that they can't get ahead in an efficient-sleeper's world. anyways, i'm going with all of the offered explanations -- they all seem likely to contribute/explain to some extent. and i can't get in to read the paper. can someone else? did the authors even consider why the rich sleep better? (i assume we can call it sleeping better, unless more sex is the explanation (which makes some sense -- a very cheap form of entertainment) (leaving aside unwanted pregnancy, etc.)).)
Posted by: dj superflat at Sep 12, 2006 12:20:56 PM
I think being able to afford comfortable beds is going to play a large part in this. A good mattress is NOT cheap.
Posted by: Rob Stevens at Sep 12, 2006 12:45:16 PM
I suspect the low income people who are poor sleepers include a lot of retired elderly. The old spend a lot of time in bed but not that much of it sleeping soundly.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Sep 12, 2006 2:28:31 PM
Sorry, I was wrong about the effect of age in the study:
"followed the sleep habits of 669 Americans aged 35 to 50 and found that those with a yearly income of less than $16,000 spend longer in bed than those making $100,000 or more, but they sleep less because their “sleep latency,” the amount of time spent lying in bed awake, stretches to nearly an hour."
I wonder what % of the >100k folks have an Ambien prescription?
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Sep 12, 2006 2:30:13 PM
“maybe those with less economic insecurity have less to worry about.”
“The poorer you are, the more likely you have to keep regular hours at work”
“they don't worry about what to eat tomorrow as much”
Do you guys personally know any really rich folks? Business owners or top corporate executives? I’ve known a few. All were highly energized. All looked forward to next day’s work. All kept regular hours – if you can call 15 hour days regular. All had much to worry about but weren’t going to allow stress to get the best of them.
My guess is that very successful people fall asleep quickly because their minds are pretty fatigued by the time they hit the pillow. That’s certainly been the case with the physicians, corporate executives, and investment bankers I’ve known.
“People with naturally lower sleep efficiency are less able to become medical residents, big firm lawyers, etc”
Good point! Highly successful people I’ve known are more efficient at everything, so probably at sleep as well.
Posted by: JohnDewey at Sep 12, 2006 4:01:44 PM
This is probably a correlation of incomes and job types.
Think about non-work hour productivity. Low wage work requires actually being at the job site to be productive - scan this label, count these boxes, move these boards. But higher wage work can be made more efficient by thinking about it away from the job site - you can brainstorm in your car, decide business strategy at dinner, and solve engineering algorithm problems in your sleep. Middle income work can be addressed only in part away from the job site - you can solve financial relationships in bed, but you still have to do the math with the actual numbers in the office.
We can test this. If I'm wrong, then union memebership would have no effect on the correlation. But if I'm right, then the more union participation, the less strong the correlation (because union wages are higher than non-union wages, especially in low income job categories). Do you know where to find historical sleep efficiency data?
But what's really interesting is the blip in hours sleep for the 35-50k/yr crowd. Are they working more for less per hour?
Posted by: The Black Monk at Sep 12, 2006 5:09:10 PM
"Me? I have money but I sleep like a pauper."
Hm, it seems they did not control for academic jobs & the resulting schedule.
Posted by: Alex at Sep 12, 2006 10:19:42 PM
So what's the direction of causality here?
If I get a CPAP, and it helps me sleep more efficiently, will I get richer?
Posted by: David Tufte at Sep 13, 2006 9:27:44 AM
Shakespear's Henry V thought otherwise. My money's on Shakespeare:
No, thou proud dream,
That play'st so subtly with a king's repose;
I am a king that find thee, and I know
'Tis not the balm, the sceptre and the ball,
The sword, the mace, the crown imperial,
The intertissued robe of gold and pearl,
The farced title running 'fore the king,
The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp
That beats upon the high shore of this world,
No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,
Who with a body fill'd and vacant mind
Gets him to rest, cramm'd with distressful bread;
Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,
But, like a lackey, from the rise to set
Sweats in the eye of Phoebus and all night
Sleeps in Elysium; next day after dawn,
Doth rise and help Hyperion to his horse,
And follows so the ever-running year,
With profitable labour, to his grave:
And, but for ceremony, such a wretch,
Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,
Had the fore-hand and vantage of a king.
The slave, a member of the country's peace,
Enjoys it; but in gross brain little wots
What watch the king keeps to maintain the peace,
Whose hours the peasant best advantages.
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