Ranking the 50 states according to this-or-that criteria is always fun, even if clicks-seeking websites have turned it into a joke. Here’s today’s fun ranking: Which states get the most sleep, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The caveat, as is often the case, is that the definition of “most sleep” is very specific – percentage of nights that you get more than 7 hours total sleep – and, worse, it’s self-reported. Self-reported survey data is very suspect, although this is about as good as it gets: the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a state-based, random-digit–dialed telephone survey.
In New Hampshire, 67.5 percent of adults reported getting at least 7 solid hours of sleep a night on average, according to the report, which puts us at 19th place and slightly better than the national average. That’s less than Vermont (69 percent), but more than Maine (67.1%) and Massachusetts (65.5%).
The figures was lowest in Hawaii (56%) and highers in South Dakota (72%), perhaps because there are more alternatives to sleep in the former than the latter.
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