According to Statistics Finland, the general daily rhythm of Finns has been undergoing a shift for decades.

Nowadays, people go to bed clearly later than they did at the end of the 1970s. The biggest change in bedtimes was seen in the 1980s. Whereas in autumn 1979, half of the population aged 10 to 64 were already asleep at 10.10 pm on weekdays, in autumn 1987 this figure was one-third and by 2021 less than a third.

Pandemic routines

The Statistics Finland time use survey found that during the coronavirus pandemic, people woke up later on weekdays and in general slept more.

Although we went to bed at about the same times as 10 years ago, fewer people were up early on weekdays.

While in the autumn of 1979, 40 percent of 10–64-year-olds were still sleeping at 6:40 am on weekdays, that figure gradually crept up over the years, making a jump to almost two out of three people still dreaming away at that time in the autumn of 2020 and 2021.

The agency attributes part of the reason for the increase in early morning sleeping to the transition to remote work and studies caused by the pandemic, and the subsequent reduction of travel to work and school.

Also, during the pandemic, the lunch hour, which structures the working day, was observed less often between 11 am and 1 pm. Work, in general, continued longer into the evenings, but still Finns spent even more time than before the pandemic on exercise and outdoor activities.