What Events Kept Countries Awake or Snoozing in 2014?

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

How did you sleep this year? What keeps you up at night? Jawbone released a year-end fact sheet showing what kinds of events and occasions kept populations around the world awake at night.

Olga Khazan from The Atlantic wrote on the study that collected data from over one million users wearing the Jawbone UP fitness tracker. The major culprits of sleep-deprivation were religious activities, holidays, time changes, and sporting events.

The 2014 World Cup kept many people up across the globe. Jawbone shows that the U.K. had its worst night of sleep during the England-Italy match on July 14th. Likewise, the Germans, Italians, and French stayed up over an hour later to watch their county’s respective games on various days. Whereas Canadians got less sleep on the night the nation squared off against Sweden in the Olympic hockey final and won. Also, Canada relaxed laws concerning alcohol, so bars could open as early as 5am to accommodate enthusiasts to cheer on their countrymen.

For the United Arab Emirates, during the month of Ramadan people stayed up nearly two hours later.

Americans’ latest nights, latest mornings, and longest sleep times were largely during three-day weekends and extended time-off from work. On the other part of the globe, Russians had a late night and an early morning on World War II Victory Day and New Year’s Eve. On the latter, bedtimes were the latest of any day for the county (around 3:30am). The only countries that came close to competing with their New Year’s Eve partying were Ukraine and Argentina. Whereas, the Americans were the ones to leave the festivities earliest, hitting the hay shortly after the ball dropped.

It’s important to understand that this data only comes from people who own Jawbones, which limits certain socioeconomic factors. However, it’s interesting to see what cultural events tend to keep the world at large from getting shut-eye.