Our Users Asked: Is Our Sleep Impacted By COVID-19?

“Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together.”
-Thomas Dekker, English dramatist 

The EVŌ team first tackled the analysis of how the global pandemic immediately changed our activity and exercise habits in March, and in the last 6 weeks we’ve seen an uptick towards a new normal for activity. Our users asked us how sleep is being impacted. We know we’re sleeping, but how well?

Are We Snoozing On Getting Enough Sleep?

Our first analysis of EVŌ users from February 2020 through April 2020 didn’t see much of a change from month-to-month:

• The Average Sleep Hours from February to April increased by .2 hours – a 2.7% increase.
• The Average Deep Sleep Hours from February to April had absolutely no change.  EVŌ users maintained an average of 2.3 Deep Sleep Hours.

While reviewing this data I audibly said, “huh” because my intuition was that we’d most certainly see an overall change in Average Total Sleep. I know I personally felt tired a lot more lately, so we dug into the data to see if there is a more visible change by gender and age cohorts. This week we’re focusing on sleep impacts by gender.

Sleep Trends by Gender

Average Total Sleep Hours

• Between February and April, EVŌ women had 4.35% less Average Sleep Hours than the men.
• While EVŌ women didn’t have a change to the Average Sleep Hours from February to March, there was an increase in Average Sleep Hours from March to April of 2.82%.
• The EVŌ men had a slight increase of Average Sleep Hours from February to March but almost doubled the percent increase from March to April.

Average Deep Sleep Hours

• In summary, EVŌ women averaged less deep sleep hours than the men. The women increased their Average Deep Sleep Hours from February to April by 18.75%. The EVŌ men had a decrease in their Average Deep Sleep Hours by 7.14% from February to April.
• The women had an increase of their Average Deep Sleep from February to March which then remained the same from March to April at the increased average. This nets out to an 18.75% increase in Average Deep Sleep comparing February to April. What’s interesting is that the EVŌ women had significantly more deep sleep in March than February while their Average Total Sleep Hours for March was the same as February – more deep sleep achieved with the same average total hours of sleep.
• Then men’s Average Total Sleep Hours increased in March and April, allowing for more available sleep time to enter a longer deep sleep phase, but their Average Deep Sleep is lower in March than February. While the total sleep increased, the restorative sleep decreased.

Sleep As A Healer

Insomnia, night terrors, vivid dreams, and sleep that doesn’t feel restful is being reported by many users right now. When I was younger I would have terrible night terrors. My mom would remind me that sleep is our body’s way of healing and our brain’s way of dealing with the stressors in life that we refuse to deal with while awake. We go through each day rinsing and repeating: wake up, work, kids, eat, exercise, news, tv, sleep – repeat. When something upsetting disrupts this predictable cadence we’ve now settled into, it’s easy to push it down and not think about it. However, our brain is trying to make sense of it all while we take the time to sleep. Take time to make sleep a priority – You’re a priority!

Be Well and EVŌ On! #EVO

-Carrie Baum
Sr. Director of Product Development