Big nights can disrupt our usual routines. Maybe it’s an election or simply a night when it’s hard to put down the phone and head to bed. The reason matters less to our sleep schedule than the result: when bedtime gets pushed back but morning still starts at the usual time, there’s less opportunity for sleep.
New Sleep Number research offers an interesting real-world example of just how much a single unusual night can shift our sleep patterns. During Tuesday's 2026 U.S. midterm election, participating Sleep Number sleepers recorded less sleep, according to an analysis of 1,248,579 unique sleepers.
The takeaway? Participating Sleep Number sleepers got about 7 minutes less sleep on the night of the 2026 midterm election. And the data suggest that later bedtimes were behind most of that difference.
The impact of election night also varied across the country. The map shows how much sleep participating Sleep Number sleepers lost by state on the night of the 2026 election, with some states seeing smaller shifts than others.
