Becoming a homeowner is seen as one of the main achievements that we aim for throughout life, but could it impact the amount of quality sleep that you get each night?
A study has revealed that the average renter gets on average 8.4 hours of sleep per night while homeowners are losing out on 14 minutes per day. This equates to 85 hours of sleep per year or 10 full 8 hour night sleeps which is substantial throughout an entire year.
So What Is The Main Reason For A Difference In Sleeping Habits?
When you buy a home, you’re now responsible for all the upkeep of the house from roof leaks to boiler problems. The more issues you have with your house, this will eat into your general leisure and sleep time.
Whereas if you’re a renter, you have the luxury of merely ringing your landlord if you have any issues with your home and they will arrange a repair while almost always covering the bill.
This is made more evident with additional results from the study that indicates that renters spend 56 minutes less on lawn care per week, 32 minutes less on general maintenance and repairs and 23 minutes fewer on housework.
Throughout a week, this doesn’t seem like much added time, but over the year this can snowball into a substantial chunk of time that you’d prefer to be doing more enjoyable activities.
Are There Any Other Factors?
How much less sleep you get as a homeowner can depend on several factors. Firstly, if you’ve just moved into a home that is more of a project property, then there will be more DIY tasks and renovations that need to be completed which will eat into your sleeping time.
The less work your home needs, the more sleep you’ll undoubtedly get.
Secondly, the location of your home will play a role in the amount of sleep you get. The study has revealed that homeowners spend 1.4 hours less per week commuting to and from work so this is one area that homeowners can use to catch up on sleep.
So Are There Any Benefits To My Sleep By Owning a Home?
By owning your own home, the most significant benefit is that you can customise your sleeping environment exactly how you like it. Often when you rent a house, there’s only so many changes you can make to the interior décor and design.
This gives Homeowners the flexibility to change the mattress, curtains, paint or add/remove furniture to truly create the perfect sleeping habitat. So although you may be getting less sleep in minutes per night, you could end up getting a higher quality compared to your renting counterparts.
Also if you’re a serial renter that regularly moves home every 6-12 months, then it can negatively affect your sleep as your body may need time to adjust to its new surroundings.
British homeowners have been found to move home on average every 23 years which means that their body can get entirely used to sleeping in the same environment night after night which in turn improves the quality of sleep.
So it’s not all doom and gloom if you’re a homeowner, but you may need to make a slightly bigger effort to get a longer restful nights sleep.