Filipinos are the most sleepless in Southeast Asia, with 56 percent of respondents experiencing slumber problems, according to leading consumer research firm, Milieu Insight's latest study released Wednesday, June 21.

While slumber may help prevent memory loss or the onset of Alzheimer’s disease for older adults, almost 3 in 4 Southeast Asians are experiencing sleep problems.

Overall, 46 percent of Southeast Asians face sleep problems at least a few times a week, with the highest prevalence observed in the Philippines (56 percent), according to Milieu Insight's study for sleep tracker app Pokémon Sleep.

The consumer research firm's April, 2023 survey covered 3,000 respondents in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.

Several sleep problems are more common among Thais, including excessive daytime sleepiness (46 percent) and increased movement during sleep (40 percent).

In addition, the study revealed that 59 percent of individuals in Southeast Asia sleep for less than seven hours.

The most common sleep problems that respondents picked were: “difficulty falling asleep” (49 percent); “waking up often at night” (39 percent) and “Irregular sleep and wake cycle” (38 percent). Vietnam (80 percent) and the Philippines (79 percent) had the largest number of respondents with sleep problems.

The popularity of sleep trackers was highest in Vietnam based on number of users (26 percent), and regionally, 14 percent of respondents indicated they were using a sleep tracker.

Of those currently using sleep tracker apps, 10 percent and 47 percent said that these apps have helped to improve their sleep quality to a “great extent” and “some extent” respectively.

In Singapore, users seem to observe less effective results, with 2 percent and 28 percent sharing similar sentiments.

Overall, the top 3 functions/data that were used to monitor sleep patterns were sleep duration (61 percent), sleep quality (amount of uninterrupted sleep) (60 percent) and sleep phases (light or deep sleep phases) (46 percent).

Personal privacy was not much of a concern as 89 percent of respondents were either “very comfortable” or “somewhat comfortable” when asked if they were comfortable to share their sleep activity data with sleep tracker apps.

Sentiment among Thailand and Vietnam respondents were largely positive and around 3 in 10 indicated that they were “very comfortable” - Thailand (37 percent) and Vietnam (32 percent).

In terms of interest in trying sleep tracker apps, such as Pokemon Sleep Vietnam ranked the highest (82 percent), followed by Thailand (76 percent) and the Philippines (76 percent).