- Romania ranks 17th, as there are 33,480 online searches a year from Romanians for sleeping aids, the highest of which being for sleeping pills/tablets (59%)
- The UK is the country in Europe that most struggles to fall asleep, with 837,600 online searches per year for sleeping aids
- Worryingly, 85% of Romanians admit to not getting the recommended minimum six hours of daily sleep at least five days out of seven
- The primary reasons causing Romanians restless nights include work-related stress (79%), financial worries (74%) and family-related stress (67%)
Sleep is a fundamental aspect of mental and physical wellbeing, yet many of us struggle to sleep. In fact, statistics from the ‘European Sleep Research Society’ show that sleep disorders affect approximately 10% of Europe’s population!
*full data breakdown available at the end of this article
Interested in sleeping habits, TheDozyOwl.co.uk utilized the analytics tool Ahrefs to establish which European country most struggles to fall asleep based on their online searches for various ‘sleeping aids’.
From an analysis of the data, the top online searches in relation to ‘sleeping aids’ were sleeping pills/tablets, sleeping music/sounds, sleep masks, sleep exercises and sleep meditation and therefore, these five variables contributed towards Dozy Owls definition of ‘sleeping aids’.
The European country that most struggles to fall asleep
Dozy Owl found that the UK is in first place as there is an average of 837,600 online searches per year by Brits for sleeping aids – equivalent of 2,295 searches each day. A breakdown of the 837,600 online searches: 38% for sleeping pills/tablets, 24% for sleeping music/sounds, 19% for sleep masks, 17% for sleep meditation and 2% for sleep exercises.
Spain rank second as there are an average of 635,880 online searches each year in the country for sleeping aids. From the 635,880 online queries: 72% for sleeping music/sounds, 17% for sleeping pills/tablets, 8% for sleep masks, 2% for sleep meditation and 1% for sleep exercises.
France (458,040), Germany (433,080) and Italy (217,800) are among the other countries where there are more than 200,000 online searches per year for sleeping aids, respectively ranking third, fourth and fifth.
Romania is in 17th place as there is an average of 33,480 annual online searches for sleeping aids. A breakdown of the 33,480 online searches: 59% for sleeping pills/tablets, 15% for sleep masks, 13% for sleeping music/sounds, 9% for sleep exercises and 4% for sleep meditation.
At the other end in 22nd position is Greece. There is an average of 8,760 online searches a year from restless Greeks looking for solutions to help them get some much-needed sleep. From the 8,760 online searches: 45% for sleeping music/sounds, 29% for sleep masks, 12% for sleep meditation, 7% for sleeping pills/tablets and 7% for sleep exercises.
Survey: Romanians views on sleep
Additionally, Dozy Owl surveyed 1,882 Romanians to discover their views on a range of issues regarding sleep.
Dozy Owl found that 85% of Romanians do not get the recommended minimum six hours of daily sleep at least five days out of seven.
Interestingly, 78% of Romanians admit to being unsatisfied with the quality of sleep they get every night.
Worryingly, 71% feel inadequate sleep is making them feel tired throughout the day.
26% of Romanians have put achieving better sleep as a focal health goal for their 2021 new year’s resolutions.
The primary reasons causing Romanians a hard time to fall asleep at night include: Work-related stress (79%), financial worries (74%), family-related stress (67%), anxiety about own future life (60%), poor diet (i.e. high caffeine and sugar consumption etc. – 55%) and old/uncomfortable bed (42%).
Dozy Owl’s top tips to achieve better sleep in 2021
- Establish a sleep routine
Getting up and going to bed at the same time every day will enable your mind and body to get used to a set sleep routine. Keep this sleep pattern consistent as possible, try not to slack off on weekends.
- Reduce light intake
Artificial lighting can have a negative impact on your ability to sleep as it tricks your brain into thinking its daylight. To avoid this, try not to use your smartphone or tablet for at least half an hour before going to bed. By not exposing yourself to the blue light these electronic devices emit, you will feel more ready for sleep.
- Implement relaxation techniques
Indulging in a relaxing activity or two other than staring at your TV or scrolling through your phone before going to bed can put you in a much better mood to sleep. These techniques could include having a warm bath, listening to relaxing music, meditation or reading a captivating book.
- Limit caffeine and sugar in diet
During evenings, cut down on your intake of caffeine and fizzy drinks. It’s important to do so, as caffeine is often attributed for deterring a state of deep sleep. Whilst for sugar, resist sweet temptations such as chocolates and cake at night as the energy spike and then subsequent crash from these sugar-packed treats can play havoc with your body clock.
Methodology:
Using online analytics tool Ahrefs,identified the top online searches in relation to ‘sleeping aids’, which were sleeping pills/tablets, sleeping music/sounds, sleep masks, sleep exercises and sleep meditation. Each of these key words were then inserted in English as well as local language into the Ahrefs ‘keyword explorer’ tool to identify how many times on average per year that term is ‘Googled’ in a set European country. Once this was done for all five terms, the search volumes for each of them were added together to show the collective annual online searches for ‘sleeping aids’ in each of the included European countries in the research.
Dozy Owl did account for the different name variations people use to search for the same thing online, for instance with sleeping pills/tablets – Dozy Owl researched in English and local language search volumes for ‘sleeping pills’, ‘sleeping tablets’, ‘sleep pill’, ‘sleep tablet’ and more.
