The Chicago Cubs are down three games to two in the World Series as they head to Cleveland to face the Indians for game six, but the data shows that Chicagoans aren't losing much sleep ahead of Tuesday night's do-or-die matchup.
Researchers at Sleep Number, the company that makes a number of adjustable and "smart" SleepIQ mattresses, dug into the data to compare sleep patterns for users in Chicago and Cleveland on game days during this series. They found that Cleveland area SleepIQ users lose 1 hour and 35 minutes of sleep on average while their Windy City counterparts only lose 24 minutes.
Obviously this research is not very scientifically rigorous as there's no way to know how much a user cares about the World Series, or if all those Clevelanders are just losing sleep over the Cleveland Browns' football season, which has been atrocious and devoid of any wins so far.
Still, this World Series is a big deal by any measure: the Cubs haven't won it all since 1908, and Cleveland is on the verge of seeing its second championship in a year (the Cleveland Cavaliers won the NBA Finals in June), following a title drought that stretched back to the 1960s. The researchers say there does appear to be at least some sort of correlation between broad sleep patterns and this year's series.
"The information we are seeing from the Cleveland and Chicago areas was so directly tied to game days, that we couldn't help but share these insights," Pete Bils, vice president of sleep science and research for Sleep Number, said in a release.
The researchers said it appears people in those cities are losing sleep on game days due to later-than-average bedtimes.
So why, then, are Chicagoans sleeping easier with their team down a game, the last two games on the road, and a 108-year-long dry spell in the mix?
At the risk of being a bummer, I'm thinking Cleveland's poverty rate of 35 percent versus 15 percent in Chicago might have something to do with it. Then again, if you're sleeping on a $1,000 SleepIQ smart mattress, you probably aren't impoverished.
Maybe all those Cubs fans just have faith that the great "Back to the Future Part II" World Series prophecy will finally come true, minus the flying cars.
