Hard Drives Replacing Sex Drives.

Separate Beds, Checking Your Blackberry and a Glass of Water – New Night Time Habits in Marriage.

 

British sleep researchers say the secret of a happy marriage may be separate beds -- or even separate bedroom. The Sleep Council reports that when couples share a bed both may be woken about six times during the night by their partner. The problem is worse if one or both snores or has restless leg syndrome.

About 25 percent of British adults snore, the British Snoring and Sleep Apnea Association said. The problem may cost their partners two hours of sleep every night.

In the United States, researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that the greatest marital problems seem to occur when one partner is a lark, getting up early in the morning ready for the day, and the other an owl who prefers to stay up late and sleep in. A California woman ended up getting a divorce because she got fed up with her husband's habit of staying up late playing computer games.

For other couples, separate bedrooms could be the right choice. The National Association of Home Builders predicted that by 2015 a majority of custom-built homes will have his-and-hers master bedrooms.

But what we do in bed is also changing according to the Sleep Council as sex drives are being swapped for hard drives as a quarter of British couples admit to sleeping separately on a regular basis.  According to the results of a survey by The Sleep Council for National Bed Month (March), the British bed is in danger of becoming more of a communications hub than a place for sleep as eight out of 10 people boot up a variety of hi-tech gadgets before bedtime.

The survey, to discover how The Great British Bedtime is changing, found a glass of water and separate beds are replacing cocoa and cuddles at bedtime.

After cleaning their teeth with an electric toothbrush and setting the alarm on their Blackberry or mobile (22%), the average adult slips, exhausted, into bed between 10 and 11pm. 40% rarely or sometimes go to bed at the same time as their partner while one in four couples admit to always or regularly sleeping separately. And before people lie down, charging up electrical appliances (22%) has definitely taken over from prayers (10%) as part of our bedtime routine.

 

“Busy night time routines are driving couples’ bedtimes and even their bedrooms apart,” says Jessica Alexander of The Sleep Council, “Nine per cent of those questioned admitted to always sleeping separately from their partner.”  Hardly surprising when you discover what people do in bed. One in three of us makes phone calls and sends or receives text or emails in bed. A further one in five keeps busy checking up on social networking sites such as Facebook, playing a computer game or listening to MP3 players.

 

But some things about The Great British Bedtime don’t change: the eponymous British ‘Jim Jams’ remain the most popular bedtime apparel with women (37%) outnumbering men (21%) in wearing them. Men are almost twice as likely as women (40% as opposed to 22%) to wear nothing at all. And a minority 1% of men questioned claim to wear a nightie!