The Pokémon Company’s global study on Pokémon Sleep’s impact yields surprise results 

The Pokémon Company recently investigated whether using its Pokémon Sleep app really improves how many hours of sleep you get. The official study looked at data from users in seven countries. As well as giving insight into Pokémon Sleep’s effectiveness, it also revealed differences in average sleep time depending on country (source: PR Times). 

Released in July 2023, Pokémon Sleep is a sleep tracking app that measures, records and analyzes your sleep. The app’s appeal is that it allows you to encounter Pokémon and document their various sleep styles as you raise your sleep score, providing an incentive for users to get a good night’s rest. The game was developed under supervision from leading sleep expert Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa of the University of Tsukuba. 

The app collects data about users’ sleeping habits, and this data was used for The Pokémon Company’s study. They calculated and ranked the average sleeping hours by country based on the first seven days of play for over 10,000 users in each country. The results were as follows: 

Average hours of sleep for the 7 countries: 

1. France 6hrs 47mins 
2. England 6hrs 40mins 
3. Canada 6hrs 39mins 
4. Germany 6hrs 34mins 
5. USA 6hrs 29mins 
6. Italy 6hrs 16mins 
7. Japan 5hrs 52mins 
   (Global average 6hrs 28mins) 

As can be seen from the results above, Japan has the shortest average sleeping time out of the seven countries, at just 5 hours and 52 minutes. This is 36 minutes less than the global average sleeping time.  

To see if Pokémon Sleep improved the sleeping times for users in Japan, the researchers calculated the average hours of sleep for those who had continued to use the app for more than 3 months. They found that the average sleep time increased by about 30 minutes after one month and by approximately 1 hour and 10 minutes after three months.  

Furthermore, the results of a questionnaire given to users in Japan who had played for more than 3 months found that 83% said they looked forward to getting up in the morning and 88% said they felt that their sleeping habits had improved. 

In a comment, Dr. Yanagisawa expressed his happiness and surprise with the improvement in average sleeping hours, saying “Japanese people can do it too.” He noted that “Young people and working age-people, who tend to be busy and neglect sleep, are actively getting more sleep so that they can enjoy the game more.” He adds that this runs contrary to the popular perception that games disrupt sleep and shows that games can be used to provide tailored motivation for people to improve their wellbeing.  

This is not the first study to analyze the app’s effectiveness. An independent study by Yahoo Data Solution last year suggested that Pokémon Sleep users slept better than non-users (related article). The Pokémon Company is continuing to conduct research using the app’s data, and they are currently collaborating with diet app developer Asken inc. to investigate the relationship between sleep and diet. 

Pokémon Sleep is free to play on iOS and Android.