FORT COLLINS, Colo. – If you visited Fort Collins recently and thought the residents seemed more perky and well-rested than the rest of us, you weren’t just imagining things. It turns out that as a city, Fort Collins is less sleep-deprived than any other in the country.
That’s according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 500 Cities Project, which provides health data at the city level for communities across the nation.
One of the health factors the project tracks is the percentage of adults 18 and older who report getting fewer than seven hours of sleep each night. The CDC recommends at least seven hours of sleep for adults between the ages of 18 and 60.
In Fort Collins, the percentage of adults who aren't getting enough sleep is just 24.4. Looking at it another way, that means more than three quarters of the city’s residents are sleeping for at least seven hours a night.
Fort Collins isn’t the only city getting to bed at a decent time; Loveland and Boulder rank second and third nationwide, respectively. Even Colorado’s biggest city, Denver, shows more than two-thirds of residents getting at least seven hours of sleep.
Here’s how other Colorado cities stacked up (percentage of adults who are NOT getting enough sleep in parentheses):
1. Fort Collins (24.4%)
2. Loveland (24.6%)
3. Boulder (25.2%)
4. Arvada (26.4%)
5. Lakewood (26.8%)
6. Longmont (27.5%)
7. Centennial (27.9%)
8. Denver (28.4%)
9. Westminster (29.4%)
10. Colorado Springs (30.1%)
11. Greeley (31.2%)
12. Thornton (32%)
13. Aurora (33.7%)
14. Pueblo (34.2%)
It’s worth noting that small towns in Colorado and other states aren’t included in the data set because the 500 Cities Project only looks at information from the country’s 500 biggest cities.
For more information, log on to cdc.gov/500cities.