It's no surprise that people, specifically Americans in this case, nap. But it is a bit surprising that the Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends department analyzed and released the demographics of the napping American population.

Pew surveyed 1,488 Americans on a variety of topics, just one of which was napping habits. The results concluded that 1 in 3 adult Americans naps on an "average" day. Who's more likely to nap?

• Men over Women
• 80+ over younger folk
• Blacks over whites and Hispanics
• Those making under $30K/year...
• But those making over $100K/year nap more than the those making $75-99K/year (in fact this last group naps the least by far)
• Those who exercised in the last 24 hours (I'd like a little more info. on this one...but Pew doesn't elaborate)
  
  And...
  
  drumroll please...
• Those who didn't sleep especially well the night before!

The New York Times, where I first spotted this report, did state one potential pitfall with the study:



"The survey did not precisely define what constitutes a nap. Some people claim they are just resting their eyes when they are really snoozing. Others may doze momentarily when reading articles about demographic trends."

--Katie Herrell

Nap Time by Paul Taylor, Pew Research Center

A Look at Who Naps by Sam Roberts, The New York Times