Global Insomnia Statistics in 2022 & 2024

Global Insomnia Statistics in 2022 & 2024

Everyone has trouble sleeping at some point in their life, whether from parenthood, noisy neighbours or general anxiety. Insomnia is a condition which makes it difficult to fall asleep at night, and it can be incredibly frustrating, especially when the cause isn’t clear.

To find out just how common insomnia is, we surveyed 2,000 US adults asking how often they struggle to fall asleep. We also analysed global search rates for keywords such as ‘melatonin’ and ‘insomnia symptoms’ to get a good idea of insomnia rates worldwide. 

Global insomnia statistics: a summary

We found that:

• 1 in 5 US adults struggle to sleep every single night (22%).

• Half of US adults experience insomnia once a month or more (50%).

• On top of that, over 1 in 4 18-24 year olds experience insomnia nightly (29%), the highest rate of insomnia out of any age group in the US.

• Adults over the age of 65 are the least likely age group to suffer from nightly insomnia (17%).

• 59% of adults in the West suffer from insomnia at some point or another, making it the most susceptible region in the US.

• The Midwest is the region with the least sleep issues in the US, with just under half of adults (49%) saying that they never have trouble sleeping.

• People in Japan searched the most for the phrase ‘can’t sleep’, with 54 searches per 100,000 people.

• Norway had the highest search rate for ‘melatonin’ in the world in 2021, with Norwegians searching 520 times per 100,000 people.

The survey question: what did we ask?

In June 2022, we sent out a survey to 2,000 adults across the US to ask just how often they struggle to sleep. We used US data here as this tends to provide a good focal point for global comparisons. We also asked respondents to fill in their age and gender, and categorised responses into age groups from 18-24 up to 65+. We asked:

How often do you struggle to fall asleep?

• Every night
• Three times per week or more
• Once or twice per week
• A few times per month
• Once per month
• Less than once per month
• Never

How often do US adults struggle to fall asleep?

How frequent is insomnia? Does it often reoccur? Our findings show that:

• As many as 1 in 5 adults in the USA (22%) struggle to fall asleep every single night.

• On top of that, more than a third of US adults struggle to fall asleep at least once a week (36%).

• Half of US adults experience insomnia once a month or more (50%).

• 43% of adults in the US do not experience insomnia. 

Which age groups are more likely to suffer from insomnia? 

While sleep quality is not inherently age-related, there are a few differences between each age group’s experiences of insomnia. In order to find out how age can affect insomnia, we categorised our survey respondents into six age groups ranging from 18-24 to 65+.

• More than 1 in 4 18-24 year olds (29%) experience insomnia every night, making them the most susceptible age group in the US. 

• Adults between the ages of 35 and 44 are the least likely to have trouble sleeping at night, with over half saying that they never experience insomnia (51%).

• Adults above the age of 65 are the least likely to suffer from insomnia nightly (17%).

• However, they are also the most likely to suffer from very infrequent insomnia, with nearly 1 in 10 experiencing it once a month or less (9%).

• Only 3% of 35-44 year olds said that they suffer from insomnia a few times a month. 

Which areas of the US have the highest insomnia rates?

Different regions experience different challenges when it comes to weather, city life and stress. In this case, does location also affect rates of insomnia? To answer this, we categorised our survey respondents into four regions of the US: Midwest, Northeast, South and West. We found that:

• People are more restful in the Midwest than in any other region, with just under half answering that they never have trouble sleeping (49%).

• The Midwest is also the least likely region to experience insomnia every night, with 19% saying that they struggle to fall asleep nightly, 3% under the US average.

• Adults in the South of the US are the most likely to struggle to fall asleep every night (24%), closely followed by the Northeast (23%).

• Surprisingly, the most likely region to suffer from insomnia is the West, with a massive 59% of adults answering that they have trouble sleeping sometimes. The West is also the region with the least light pollution in the USA. 

Which countries around the world are affected most by insomnia?

In light of our findings, we wanted to find out whether location continues to affect insomnia rates around the world. We used Keyword Finder to search for the phrase ‘can’t sleep’ to determine the search rate in each country. We divided this figure by population and multiplied it by 100,000 to find out the search rate for ‘can’t sleep’ per 100,000 people per country over the past 12 months. We also translated our search into each country’s main language to ensure that our results were accurate. In cases where the English variants had more searches, we used these results instead.

Due to several factors such as countries using different search engines and having different levels of internet access, not all keyword results are fully accurate. For this reason, we have excluded Iran, Sudan and China from our results due to search engine restrictions. Our results also include regions not officially recognised as countries by many governments.

• People in Japan, Taiwan and Sweden have the biggest struggle with insomnia globally, searching for ‘can’t sleep’ more than any other country around the world.

• Japanese people search for ‘can’t sleep’ 54 times per 100,000 people, 15 times the global average of 3.6.

• Our Swedish neighbours conduct 37 searches for ‘can’t sleep’ per 100,000 people, 21 more than Singapore, the country with the highest level of light pollution in the world.

• Norwegians also conduct a very high number of searches compared to other countries around the world, searching 18 times per 100,000 people from 2021 to 2022. 

Which countries show the most interest in insomnia solutions?

There are many solutions to insomnia you can find online, including melatonin, changing your sleep schedule and adjusting your daily activities. In order to understand which countries have the most interest in recovering from insomnia, we used Keyword Finder to find out the search rate for the key phrases ‘Melatonin’ and ‘how to fall asleep fast’ per 100,000 people in each country.

• Norway has the most interest in ‘melatonin’ in the world, searching a massive 520 times per 100,000 people from 2021 to 2022, 67 more times than Sweden.

• The Swedes have the second most interest, with 453 searches per 100,000 people.

• However, Polish people are more interested in ‘how to fall asleep fast’, searching 39 times per 100,000 people, more than any other country in the world.

• Germans search 151 times per 100,000 people for the word ‘Melatonin’, compared to only 8 searches per 100,000 people for ‘how to fall asleep fast’ in the same time.

Insomnia in 2024: Are our sleep problems getting better or worse? 

To find out how the prevalence of sleep problems is changing overtime around the world, we used the tool Google Trends to analyse searches made for the term ‘Insomnia symptoms’, which found that: 

• The phrase ‘insomnia symptoms’ was looked up on Google more times in 2023 than any other year between 2017-2023.

• Online searches for this phrase tend to peak each year at the beginning of January.

• As you can see from the graph below, searches related to Insomnia symptoms have increased year on year over the last 5 years worldwide. The start of 2024 shows the same level of search activity as in 2023 but if the trend from the last five years continue, we expect it to increase throughout the year.

Some more facts and figures about insomnia around the world

Looking for more? Here are some more facts about insomnia worldwide:

• Singapore is the country with the highest concentration of light pollution in the world.

• According to a 2007 study, 12% of children between 11-15 years old struggle to fall asleep nightly, and only 12% had no sleep problems at all.

• Only 13% of adults in Japan have trouble sleeping at night, according to a 2015 survey.

• In contrast, 41% of our neighbours in Sweden reported experiencing insomnia, making it the most susceptible country in the world in 2015.

• Stress, anxiety and depression are among the most common causes of insomnia.

Hopefully our data has given you a better understanding of insomnia and the ways it affects adults around the world. If you’re interested in more facts about insomnia and other conditions, check out our wide selection of articles on health-related topics via our website Helsestart.