The UK's Sleepiest Cities

Which are the UK’s most sleep-deprived places?

Waking up after a restless night of tossing and turning is no fun for anyone, leaving you feeling groggy and unable to function the next day.

There are all kinds of things that could be keeping you up at night and stopping you from getting your recommended eight hours, but which parts of the UK are struggling to get a good night’s sleep the most?

Supplement Place analysed their own sales data alongside Google search volume to find out which parts of the country have been searching for ways to get a better night’s sleep.

For each town or city, we looked at the number of orders placed for sleep supplements and the number of sleep-related searches and assigned a ‘sleepy score’ out of ten.

The Most Sleep-Deprived Towns & Cities

Looking at both factors, it seems that it’s the residents of Bolton, Greater Manchester, who have the most trouble dropping off at night, with a sleep score of 7.77 out of ten.

This was closely followed by Bristol, with a sleepy score of 7.49, with other sleep-deprived cities including Leicester (5.88), Liverpool (5.68), Nottingham and Newcastle (both 5.46).

The Towns & Cities Ordering the Most Sleep Supplements

For each town and city, we looked at the number of sleep supplements ordered per person, and surprisingly, this revealed that those in Bolton are ordering more than twice as many sleep supplements as anywhere else in the country!

The Towns & Cities Searching the Most for Sleep Tips

We also looked at Google search data to see which towns and cities were making the most searches per person for things such as “How to Get to Sleep” and “Insomnia”.

This showed that it was those in Bristol who are turning to the web for sleep advice the most, closely followed by the residents of Liverpool, Leicester, Manchester and Glasgow.

How to Get Better Sleep

If you’re one of the thousands of people who struggle to get a good night’s sleep, here are some quick tips to help you drift off and enjoy a more productive day.

• Go to bed and get up at the same time each day - Even if you’re struggling to sleep, getting into this routine helps to set your body clock and improve your sleep quality. Avoid sleeping in, even at the weekends, and try to limit napping during the day.
• Limit your screen time - Exposure to light limits the amount of melatonin that your brain produces (that’s the hormone which helps regulate your sleep), so avoid bright screens in the hours before bedtime and make sure that the room is nice and dark before you go to bed.
• Exercise - Those who maintain an active lifestyle generally get better sleep than those who don’t, as exercise helps us to spend more time in the deepest stages of sleep. Even light exercise can have positive effects.
• Limit your food & drink intake before bed - Things such as caffeine, alcohol, sugar and refined carbs can all impact on your sleep, so try not to eat or drink too late in the evening. Smoking can also disrupt your sleep too.

Methodology

We looked at each of the UK’s 50 most populated towns and cities and ranked them on the following two factors, giving each a normalised score out of ten for each factor, before taking an average of these two scores.
Sleep Supplements

For each town or city, we looked at the number of orders placed through our site for sleep supplement products since 2013, before normalising this against the population to find the number of orders per person.
Sleep Searches

For each town or city, we used Google’s Keyword Planner to find the number of average monthly searches for the following five terms, again calculating how many were made per person in each town or city:

• Insomnia
• Can't Sleep
• How to Get to Sleep
• How to Fall Asleep Fast
• Struggling to Sleep