(RepublicanInformer.com)- According to a recent survey, 10 percent of American adults rarely or never enjoy a good night’s sleep and about 25 percent of American couples have opted to sleep in separate beds.
A study from Naturepedic found that sleeping apart improves the quality of sleep and reduces stress while sleeping together improves intimacy and results in healthier relationships.
The main reasons couples gave for sleeping apart were snoring (57 percent) and conflicting sleep schedules (56 percent).
The study found that 63 percent of Millennials and 62 percent of Gen Z cited conflicting sleep schedules as the reason they sleep apart while 68 percent of Baby Boomers cited snoring.
Another 28 percent of Millennials who sleep apart said “intimacy issues” were a significant reason. Twenty-three percent of Gen X said the same.
Meanwhile, Gen Z was the age group most likely to cite mattress firmness or softness as the reason they choose to sleep apart.
Among Millennials, 54 percent cited sleep disorders as the reason they sleep separately while 22 percent of Baby Boomers said the same.
Sleeping separately used to be the norm.
In the late 19th century, most couples slept apart as a health precaution.
In a series of articles in the 1880s, Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson warned of the risk of sharing germs with another person while sleeping, arguing that sharing beds “is always, to some extent, unhealthy” in the same way eating from the same plate would be.
A hundred years ago, two twin beds were considered the fashionable, modern choice for married couples as they promoted healthy living. In a 1919 volume “Sleeping for Health,” Dr. Edwin Bowers wrote that twin beds “promote comfort, cleanliness, and the natural delicacy that exists among human beings.”
By the 1960s, separate twin beds fell out of fashion everywhere except on television, where married couples like Rob and Laura Petrie from “The Dick Van Dyke Show” were seen sleeping in separate beds. However, this decision had more to do with network television’s obsession with “decency.”
