Stress, anxiety and pain disturb Americans' sleep, survey finds

If you suspect you're not getting enough sleep, you're probably right: A new survey says 83 percent of Americans don't get a good night's sleep on a consistent basis.

Why not? Stress and anxiety were cited as the top reason by 48 percent of the 1,008 adults interviewed by the polling firm Harris Interactive. In addition, 47 percent of those surveyed said they simply weren't able to turn off their thoughts.

Among other culprits:

-38 percent of Americans said pain interfered with their ability to catch the necessary ZZZZs.

-32 percent said they were too overtired to rest.

-23 percent blamed background noise.

-23 percent chalked up their lack of sleep to children or pets.

-18 percent said they had breathing problems that kept them from sleeping soundly.

-17 percent said their spouses or significant others were to blame.

Overall, women (88 percent) were more likely than men (78 percent) to report sleep deprivation or sleep disorders, the survey found.

People in households with a total income of less than $35,000 a year were also more likely than those in households that earned more than $100,000 a year to say they had sleep problems - 55 percent of low-income adults blamed stress and anxiety for poor sleep, and 45 percent of them said pain kept them up at night. (Among high-income adults, those figures were 41 percent and 31 percent, respectively.)

However, people in those income groups were equally likely to have their sleep interrupted by their children, pets or their own thoughts, the survey found.

Results of the 2013 Rx Sleep Survey were released Monday at the SLEEP 2013 meeting in Baltimore. The poll was commissioned by Targeted Medical Pharma Inc., a Los Angeles biotech company.

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