The numbers tend to be vast in the world of sleep medicine, with predicted numbers of undiagnosed sleep apnea patients ranging in the millions. Another predictor of sleep disorders comes via Google searches, with an Amerisleep analysis revealing more than 237 million sleep-related queries over a period of four years.
“We found that Americans turn to Google to find answers about sleep issues almost five million times every month,” writes McKenzie Hyde of Amerisleep. “In fact, the world’s biggest search engine may actually know more about us than our own doctors do. The more frequently a term appears in a Google search, the more important it is to a significant number of searchers.”
The Amerisleep analysis concluded:
- Roughly 1 million sleep-related searches happened annually on Google.
- Sleep apnea was by far the most frequently Googled term in 2019, with more than 17 million searches—outpacing the second most popular search by 25%. Massachusetts residents search for apnea-related terms more often than any other state, and Arkansas the least.
- Insomnia remains a nationwide concern, with nearly 13 million searches. The majority of those are in California, whose residents searched for related terms more than twice as often as Montana (the state least concerned about the inability to sleep).
- Night sweats are a particular concern in New England, while western states are the least concerned about them.
- Californians are much more interested in sleep paralysis than residents of any other state. Even when the population is taken into account, California residents searched terms related to “sleep paralysis” 10% more often than the next most interested state (Texas) and twice as often as residents of Montana.