文化和睡眠的關係
看家具網站(IKEA), 找到個滿有趣的文章. 是講文化和睡眠的關係…. 一個人睡眠的pattern會受culture的影響~ 要看全文喔. 真的很有趣… 尤其是 multifunctional bedroom 和 romance 的部分.
p.s. 右圖的房間…. 我有搞怪改過東西…. XD 能猜到改過什麼嗎? 我技術還不夠好, 所以可能會很明顯….
(from IKEA web site)
International sleep study reveals cultural differences
What defines a bed is different around the world, and what people do in the bedroom varies, but when it comes to sleep, we all seem to need as much (or as little) as the next person. Another thing the world has in common, besides a bed, is the alarm clock, which is the second most common accessory in 82% of the world’s bedrooms.
These are among the findings of the World-wide Sleep Index, a study conducted by Gallup International for IKEA. Researchers interviewed a representative sample of 500 adults in each of 27 countries during January and February 2004, with a total of 13,657 respondents around the world.
Hours of sleep
Most people sleep between 6 and 8 hours a night, with the mean at 7 hours 6 minutes, the study found. The younger you are, the longer you sleep; women sleep more than men and single people sleep less than people in larger households.
Calculated country by country, people in the Netherlands and Poland sleep most, at 7 hours 31 minutes, and people in Malaysia get only 6 hours and 36 minutes. Americans also manage with less sleep — only 6 hours 49 minutes – whereas Australians are right on average at 7 hrs 8 minutes per night.
The respondents’ satisfaction with their mattress has an effect on how many hours they sleep, i.e. the more satisfied they are with their mattress, the more they sleep.
Sleeping styles
There are many different styles of bed, but the most common type of mattress in Australia (63%), North America (71%) and Europe (48%) is the spring mattress, followed by the wooden-base spring mattress. Wooden bases are most popular in Denmark (49%), the Netherlands (38%), Taiwan (28%) and Australia (24%). Only 5% of Australians use a foam or latex mattress, whereas in Kuwait it’s the most popular (69%).
Kuwait also has the highest score for renewing mattresses most often, at 75% in the category “about every five years”, as compared to only 18% of Australians. Most Australian respondents (43%) change their mattresses every 6-10 years, 17% less often and 15% never have. Eastern Europe has a high proportion of respondents who have never changed their mattresses, from the Czech Republic at 33% to Russia at 52%.
The multifunctional bedroom
While bedrooms are used mostly for sleep, 17% of respondents said the room they use for sleeping is multifunctional. This was typically the case for younger respondents. Only 10% of Western European and Australian respondents sleep in a multifunctional room (notable exceptions are Germany at 17%, and Finland, at 24%). Things are different in East-Central Europe where the percentage of people who sleep in multifunctional rooms reaches 50% in Russia and 80% in Poland. Asian countries vary considerably, from 8% in Hong Kong and Taiwan to 30% in China.
Besides sleep, respondents mentioned four other main functions of the bedroom: reading or studying (50%), romance (47%), relaxing during the day (43%) and entertainment, such as watching TV or listening to music (40%). Working was another frequent answer in some countries. The US belongs to the group of countries with high scores for “working”, while Canada and Australia have high scores for “romance”.
Who’s satisfied?
Even people who are satisfied with their mattresses may not be so happy with their bedroom, the study found.
Those who were least happy with their bedroom didn’t like its appearance. A bedroom that is crammed full was the least satisfying, as was a room shared by people other than a partner, such as other family members or guests. Younger people were the least satisfied, mainly due to multifunctional sleeping rooms.
In contrast, people who were most satisfied with their bedrooms sleep with their partners, and their bedrooms are sparse and trendy. The highest levels of satisfaction are among respondents in Western Europe and North America, followed by Australia (78%). The lowest are among Asian and East-Central European respondents with Russia the worst where only 9% of respondents are satisfied.
Colour is another important factor when it comes to satisfaction. In Australia, 65% of respondents said respondents said their ideal bedroom should be colourful, and 51% of their bedrooms already achieve this goal. Americans (75%) and Canadians (51%) were also into colourful bedrooms.
Romance
In Iceland, 72% of respondents used their sleeping room for romance, followed by Sweden (72%) and Denmark (68%). Australians (60%) are also into romance, but the other extreme can be found in China (20%), Russia (28%) and Austria (28%). The study did not measure the frequency of romance, but the frequency of romance in the bedroom. For example, people in Poland had the highest rate of “daily intimacy” in Europe – about five times more than in Sweden – while nearly half the population of Malaysia is engaged in intimacy every day. (People in Malaysia also sleep the fewest hours each night, but “relax” a lot during the day.) Curiously, Poland also had the highest rate of plants in the bedroom world-wide.
Is it possible that outside temperatures in Iceland explain the use of the bedroom for romance, while Malaysia’s climate provides more options? Do plants encourage romance?
Maybe, but these are matters for a different study.
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