Welcome to the little-discussed world of adult sleeping arrangements, where many couples secretly don't sleep next to each other. We don't talk about it much because those who do sleep next to each other think that our relationships must be horribly broken, and we don't feel the need to justify our choices, or get into details of the logistics of our intimate lives. But talked about or not, it is true -- many more couples than you might think choose sleep separately for exactly the reasons shown by this data. A good night's sleep is more important in the long run than physical proximity to your partner.
many more couples than you might think choose sleep separately for exactly the reasons shown by this data.
It appears you didn't read past the first graph (which initially implies a reduction in sleep due to sharing a bed with his partner). But he then goes on to say this:
Turns out, since we started sharing a bed, most nights I have the same amount of sleep as before.
What follows is a further analysis leading to this conclusion:
Whilst spending nights with my girlfriend results in less time in a state which Fitbit recognises as “lying in bed ready to sleep”, because we go to bed later and get up earlier, when I am in that state, I sleep better.
So it's not that he's sleeping less, or more poorly while sharing a bed. That first graph is just a product of less time spent physically in bed. In fact, there's another graph he presents that shows basically the same amount of actual sleep while in bed, with or without his partner.
Try not to read your own biases into other people's writing, and be very careful when skimming. It's a hard habit to break, I know, but it can really hurt you in life (no joke... misreading an email in a professional context can make for nasty mistakes).
Anecdotes are not data and all that aside - your partner's movements are often something that can be gotten used to. As half of a happily "sleeping in the same bed" couple for around 22 years now, the only time my wife affects my sleep is when she isn't well; a time I don't mind being woken up.
It's amazing what humans can get used to. We recently got a puppy, and went from "wake up every time it moves" to "wake up only if it starts whining". Didn't even take 3 months.
We have a 15 month old daughter who sleeps in a crib in our room, and my wife is a light sleeper. Baby makes a noise, wife wakes up, wife takes an hour to fall back asleep.
I keep telling her: please, sleep on the couch. Literally every time you sleep out there, you get better sleep, and feel better in the morning. But she always says no.
I wish we were one of those couples who secretly, or otherwise, slept apart at least a few nights a week.
Sleeping with a partner, I discovered I have pretty severe OSA (obstructive sleep apnea). I was wondering why I was tired all the time for 5+ years, and here was the answer.
I got CPAP therapy going (funny machine that fixes your breathing). Not super sexy but after a few weeks of using it every night I am orders of magnitude better. Better moods, more energy, I wake up rested and I don't need 10 hours of sleep to feel normal. I used to spend most of my weekends catching up on sleep, little did I know I was not really sleeping well at all.
With the CPAP therapy I don't move at all during the night according to my partner.
Now all we need to do is get the cat to stop waking us up and her kid to sleep in his own bed :)
What about a king size bed? With dual twin size coverings? I'm not judging - but sleeping in the other room or on the other bed seems to defeat the point of being together, no?
I was married for a long while - and I miss it. That said - she only weighed 95 pounds, so maybe not having to deal with king-kong in my bed helped.
My wife and I came to the realization that the Europeans are onto something with the twin size duvets on full size beds after visiting last summer. Fortunately, neither of us snores much but she prefers to sleep with far less covers than I do. What used to be a constant battle of covers being tossed aside only to fail at reclaiming them later in the night now allows each of us to determine our own sleep temperature much more easily and with far less disruption to the other.
Not just sleep temp (wife is also of the less covers camp), but mattress firmness. My wife likes ultra firm by European standards. So she has the Chinese sea horse brand mattress. I'm a bag of bones, so the mattress literally pushes my spine to pinch nerves. Our solution is a king size mattress with twin covers, and one side has a twin memory foam. We sleep happy and together.
Cultural aside: mattress firmness. It will blow your mind how firm some seahorse mattresses get. One Caucasian friend commented after one night that they would have probably been better off probably on our broadloom carpet floor.
OT, but I'm now super conflicted about whether the correct quantifier for covers is "less" or "fewer". I think I agree with you that "less" is more correct, but my inner pedantry can't shake the feeling that it sounds weird.
I'm 31 and I've never had a partner, but every time I've had sex, the experience of sleep (or lack thereof) that follows fills me with dread concerning what life will be like in a relationship.
Same age, everyone is different, but my experience is at least in your 20s when you're getting your first tastes of cohabitating relationships:
1) Starting cohabitating relationship: First a transition period where you lose sleep, but then you sleep like a baby, you don't stay up late thinking or worrying about x,y,z. The downside is you find yourself in a stagnating ball of comfort and end up challenging yourself a lot less because you're just too comfortable. (I look back at how lame I became in some of my cohabitating relationships, and could say the same for others I know, but would not to their face.)
b) Leaving cohabitating relationship: You sleep like a baby at first (nice surface feeling of independence), maybe for a couple months even, but then you grow anxious and feel negative effects of dependency withdrawal, and then end up losing a lot more sleep staying up late thinking or working. That can last a while, until you find another cohabitating relationship or find a deep rooted sense of independence again.
Again, likely different when you're older, but I think that's the general trajectory of being in cohabitating relationships in your younger years.
If you want a relationship (and it sounds like you do) then you'd better take a deep breath and jump into one, because live-in relationships are psychically demanding and complex, and it takes significant time to learn how to do it - not least because it's hard to fully know yourself until you develop the ability to see yourself through the eyes of others. And I don't mean in little glimpses, but in the sense of giving someone time to fully know about you, including the parts of yourself you'd rather keep hidden, the compromises you make (or demand) when your interests are misaligned but you're tethered to each other, and so forth.
I don't want to go into specifics as it's not a competition, but I've been sexually active nearly as long as you've been alive, and spent about 2/3 of that in relationships of various depth and complexity in addition to more casual flings. I'd say it's only around this stage of mid-life that I've developed a high degree of self-knowledge, even though I've been introverted as long as I can remember.
Relationships are hard work, and you won't just lose sleep, you'll get your heart broken over and over. But loneliness and isolation are terribly, terribly corrosive, and I would say that to hold back from fully engaging with life is to literally waste your time. The value of being in love, loving others, and allowing them to love you are beyond price and enable you to overcome any level of fear. If there is a 'point' to consciousness, it is to fully experience this.
You could die tomorrow, so I beg you from the bottom of my heart to start living today.
Towards the top of my 'advice to the young' list, is to obtain a king-sized bed as soon as possible after leaving home. (In AU these are around 2030x1900mm - though there are regional variances with the same appellation).
Partly so you don't end up with a collection of incompatible sheeting as you slowly trade up bed sizes for the first few years of living away from home, but also because it makes it more likely that your sleep (arriving, leaving, and the bit in the between) patterns are much less likely to disrupt your partner.
In terms of sleep disruption, yes. But not necessarily in terms of disruption in your bed. Even though it's all the rage, you don't have to co-sleep. We didn't, and our daughter slept through the night once she was 5 months and has always been an amazing sleeper (12 hours per night like clockwork).
Pretty cool to have data on this. My more recent long-term relationships have involved actually sleeping in separate beds 99% of the time, which I'm quite happy with.
Maybe it works for some couples, but it seems like a tradition borne of history and culture and limited living space. Much prefer having my own room.
I really like sleeping with my wife, and with the kids when camping or when we have guests over. However, I miss having a proper space to call my own when I'm awake.
I used to think it was weird that if I fell asleep without my girlfriend in the bed I saw a correlation to the number of times I woke up / quality of my sleep. We broke up two weeks ago and sleeping has certainly been the most difficult adjustment. Also why Quantum Biology is interesting as it paints a subconscious non-sensory human connection. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADiql3FG5is&t=388s / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8weQFmQYxL8
Honest question, most of the plots I see on r/dataisbeautiful or other pop data science sources would get me heckled at a group meeting. Does this mean a) my group is exceptionally harshly pushing for clarity and precision and life will be "easier" in the real world or does it mean a good chunk of statisticians in the field do poor work?
Anyone recall that back in 2011, the default setting for your Fitbit data was public and it was set to be indexed by Google, leading to some rather embarrassing search results.
Or correlation with basically everything else. I sleep better when in a separate room than my wife, because if that happens that's probably because she was being nice and shielded me from my morning duties, and let the kid jump in her bed in the morning.
In order for those measure to make any sense OP would need to follow the exact same routine with and without his girlfriend (in the same flat of course). Otherwise it is measuring the general effect of living with somebody (different activities, different morning arrangement, different commute, ...) rather than the specific sleeping arrangement effect.
Now I'm not discarding the effect, however after a few years together, you start getting used to your bed partner. The stuff that really matters is if you have enough room and sheets to make it work. In the extreme case, a queen size bed is basically 2 single bed joined together and is a cheaper alternative than the extra half a million an extra bedroom costs.
edit: reread the article and it seems OP actually talk more about the effect of living with somebody rather than the physical sleeping arrangement. Comments were drifting in the "physical" direction at the time I commented.
I definitively share the same experience - obviously with a kid and wife, I have much less freedom in my night and morning routine. Not sure I'm sleeping better, my wife definitively is - her stress level is way lower when she knows I'm home and she sleeps more deeply, not woken up by every little noise (the effect has been mitigated slightly since we have a child though)
I think the interesting part is as the relationship matures, there is no emotional pull down in not sleeping close to each other and couple happily sleep a little far but on the same bed.
Earplugs have been a game changer for me in this department. As an extremely light sleeper I've been struggling all my life with other people snoring or even semi-loud breathing.
After I started using earplugs I'm now sleeping through the night even better than when I slept by myself. I feel like when I wear them I'm in an isolation chamber :)
The trick was finding earplugs that don't hurt after wearing them for 8 hours, but after having tried a few I landed on some acceptable ones (I can still feel them but they're not uncomfortable if inserted properly)
Mostly it's just a matter of getting used to it… when I first moved in with a long-term girlfriend, I didn't sleep well sharing the bed. But I quickly got used to it and it became a non-issue within months. years later, we broke up and I went back to sleeping alone… These days I frequently share a bed with various people and it's a non-issue; I sleep perfectly regardless of anyone else being in the bed.
I'm interested. You've mentioned when you got the Fitbit, but haven't mentioned how long have you been sleeping together. Considering that you have recorded ~13 months in total, is the amount of data you have approximately the same or is the amount of data tilted on one of the sides in any way?
If she sees this your problem may well fix itself :)
I do agree about the merits of a large bed though. With a wife and two huge dogs things get a little crowded but since I've been an insomniac since childhood this is merely a new version of an old problem.
I have a different experience, viz. that sharing a bed reduces the jitter in my sleeping patterns, with long-term benefits perceived in cognition, mood, and self-care. It'd be interesting to make a proper data analysis.
It's a problem of upbringing. If you as a child learnt to sleep alone early you will have a problem sharing a bed. Case in point: My Asian wife sleeps happily with our children all over her. It's amazing.
[+] [-] codingdave|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zzalpha|8 years ago|reply
It appears you didn't read past the first graph (which initially implies a reduction in sleep due to sharing a bed with his partner). But he then goes on to say this:
Turns out, since we started sharing a bed, most nights I have the same amount of sleep as before.
What follows is a further analysis leading to this conclusion:
Whilst spending nights with my girlfriend results in less time in a state which Fitbit recognises as “lying in bed ready to sleep”, because we go to bed later and get up earlier, when I am in that state, I sleep better.
So it's not that he's sleeping less, or more poorly while sharing a bed. That first graph is just a product of less time spent physically in bed. In fact, there's another graph he presents that shows basically the same amount of actual sleep while in bed, with or without his partner.
Try not to read your own biases into other people's writing, and be very careful when skimming. It's a hard habit to break, I know, but it can really hurt you in life (no joke... misreading an email in a professional context can make for nasty mistakes).
[+] [-] falcolas|8 years ago|reply
It's amazing what humans can get used to. We recently got a puppy, and went from "wake up every time it moves" to "wake up only if it starts whining". Didn't even take 3 months.
[+] [-] pavel_lishin|8 years ago|reply
I keep telling her: please, sleep on the couch. Literally every time you sleep out there, you get better sleep, and feel better in the morning. But she always says no.
I wish we were one of those couples who secretly, or otherwise, slept apart at least a few nights a week.
[+] [-] ryan-allen|8 years ago|reply
I got CPAP therapy going (funny machine that fixes your breathing). Not super sexy but after a few weeks of using it every night I am orders of magnitude better. Better moods, more energy, I wake up rested and I don't need 10 hours of sleep to feel normal. I used to spend most of my weekends catching up on sleep, little did I know I was not really sleeping well at all.
With the CPAP therapy I don't move at all during the night according to my partner.
Now all we need to do is get the cat to stop waking us up and her kid to sleep in his own bed :)
[+] [-] ci5er|8 years ago|reply
I was married for a long while - and I miss it. That said - she only weighed 95 pounds, so maybe not having to deal with king-kong in my bed helped.
[+] [-] dclowd9901|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brewdad|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eumenides1|8 years ago|reply
Cultural aside: mattress firmness. It will blow your mind how firm some seahorse mattresses get. One Caucasian friend commented after one night that they would have probably been better off probably on our broadloom carpet floor.
[+] [-] saghm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Broken_Hippo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] RandomInteger4|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orthoganol|8 years ago|reply
1) Starting cohabitating relationship: First a transition period where you lose sleep, but then you sleep like a baby, you don't stay up late thinking or worrying about x,y,z. The downside is you find yourself in a stagnating ball of comfort and end up challenging yourself a lot less because you're just too comfortable. (I look back at how lame I became in some of my cohabitating relationships, and could say the same for others I know, but would not to their face.)
b) Leaving cohabitating relationship: You sleep like a baby at first (nice surface feeling of independence), maybe for a couple months even, but then you grow anxious and feel negative effects of dependency withdrawal, and then end up losing a lot more sleep staying up late thinking or working. That can last a while, until you find another cohabitating relationship or find a deep rooted sense of independence again.
Again, likely different when you're older, but I think that's the general trajectory of being in cohabitating relationships in your younger years.
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] anigbrowl|8 years ago|reply
8-O
If you want a relationship (and it sounds like you do) then you'd better take a deep breath and jump into one, because live-in relationships are psychically demanding and complex, and it takes significant time to learn how to do it - not least because it's hard to fully know yourself until you develop the ability to see yourself through the eyes of others. And I don't mean in little glimpses, but in the sense of giving someone time to fully know about you, including the parts of yourself you'd rather keep hidden, the compromises you make (or demand) when your interests are misaligned but you're tethered to each other, and so forth.
I don't want to go into specifics as it's not a competition, but I've been sexually active nearly as long as you've been alive, and spent about 2/3 of that in relationships of various depth and complexity in addition to more casual flings. I'd say it's only around this stage of mid-life that I've developed a high degree of self-knowledge, even though I've been introverted as long as I can remember.
Relationships are hard work, and you won't just lose sleep, you'll get your heart broken over and over. But loneliness and isolation are terribly, terribly corrosive, and I would say that to hold back from fully engaging with life is to literally waste your time. The value of being in love, loving others, and allowing them to love you are beyond price and enable you to overcome any level of fear. If there is a 'point' to consciousness, it is to fully experience this.
You could die tomorrow, so I beg you from the bottom of my heart to start living today.
[+] [-] Jedd|8 years ago|reply
Partly so you don't end up with a collection of incompatible sheeting as you slowly trade up bed sizes for the first few years of living away from home, but also because it makes it more likely that your sleep (arriving, leaving, and the bit in the between) patterns are much less likely to disrupt your partner.
[+] [-] tvelichkov|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toomuchtodo|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TillE|8 years ago|reply
Maybe it works for some couples, but it seems like a tradition borne of history and culture and limited living space. Much prefer having my own room.
[+] [-] pbhjpbhj|8 years ago|reply
I really like sleeping with my wife, and with the kids when camping or when we have guests over. However, I miss having a proper space to call my own when I'm awake.
[+] [-] fiatjaf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] neom|8 years ago|reply
Working article link: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:yrb4OPB...
[+] [-] majewsky|8 years ago|reply
> Error establishing a database connection
Does someone have an archive link? (Or an explanation why rendering this article requires a database connection, for that matter.)
[+] [-] yasoob|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] colejohnson66|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fiatjaf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 88e282102ae2e5b|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noobermin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raisedbyninjas|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dankohn1|8 years ago|reply
https://techcrunch.com/2011/07/03/sexual-activity-tracked-by...
[+] [-] codemogul|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gutnor|8 years ago|reply
In order for those measure to make any sense OP would need to follow the exact same routine with and without his girlfriend (in the same flat of course). Otherwise it is measuring the general effect of living with somebody (different activities, different morning arrangement, different commute, ...) rather than the specific sleeping arrangement effect.
Now I'm not discarding the effect, however after a few years together, you start getting used to your bed partner. The stuff that really matters is if you have enough room and sheets to make it work. In the extreme case, a queen size bed is basically 2 single bed joined together and is a cheaper alternative than the extra half a million an extra bedroom costs.
edit: reread the article and it seems OP actually talk more about the effect of living with somebody rather than the physical sleeping arrangement. Comments were drifting in the "physical" direction at the time I commented. I definitively share the same experience - obviously with a kid and wife, I have much less freedom in my night and morning routine. Not sure I'm sleeping better, my wife definitively is - her stress level is way lower when she knows I'm home and she sleeps more deeply, not woken up by every little noise (the effect has been mitigated slightly since we have a child though)
[+] [-] sdurx|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seshagiric|8 years ago|reply
I think the interesting part is as the relationship matures, there is no emotional pull down in not sleeping close to each other and couple happily sleep a little far but on the same bed.
[+] [-] dang|8 years ago|reply
We also took out "with my girlfriend", a form of bait in its own right, since the substance of the title remains the same without it.
[+] [-] markyc|8 years ago|reply
After I started using earplugs I'm now sleeping through the night even better than when I slept by myself. I feel like when I wear them I'm in an isolation chamber :)
The trick was finding earplugs that don't hurt after wearing them for 8 hours, but after having tried a few I landed on some acceptable ones (I can still feel them but they're not uncomfortable if inserted properly)
[+] [-] oski|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] SeoxyS|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] r3bl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anigbrowl|8 years ago|reply
I do agree about the merits of a large bed though. With a wife and two huge dogs things get a little crowded but since I've been an insomniac since childhood this is merely a new version of an old problem.
[+] [-] inopinatus|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] _nalply|8 years ago|reply