Smart ring creator ŌURA has released its State of Sleep Report 2026, exploring how its members in New Zealand and Australia sleep compared to the rest of the world.
The report showed that New Zealanders rank number one globally for the longest sleep duration each night, averaging 7 hours 11 minutes, followed closely by Australians at 7 hours 9 minutes.
At the same time, New Zealanders are also the world’s earliest risers, waking just after 7:00 am, almost an hour before Oura Members in the UAE, who get up just before 8:00 am. This early rising is likely due to Kiwis’ circadian rhythms being skewed towards early mornings.
In fact, around 39 percent of New Zealanders fall into early morning or morning chronotypes, the highest percentage globally, alongside Australia at 43 percent.
Only four percent of New Zealanders fall into the evening or late-evening chronotype, the lowest in the world.
New Zealanders might be champion sleepers, but their days tell a different story. With an average of 101 minutes of physiological stress each day, Kiwis are still struggling to build in restorative pauses, suggesting they are compensating for hectic days with longer nights.
Doug Sweeny, CMO at ŌURA, said that New Zealand is a reminder that sleep duration alone doesn’t tell the full story. Recovery is a 24-hour equation: if stress isn’t managed during the day, the body carries that load into the night.
“The encouraging thing is that many of our members here are already working with their bodies – waking early, going to bed early, and aligning their daily rhythms with their biology, something they can do confidently with ŌURA.”
“This is why we’re so excited to keep bringing science-backed insights to New Zealand: to help make small, meaningful changes that support overall health.”
The findings are based on sleep data collected from a minimum of 5,000 Oura Members in New Zealand and other global countries over a 12-month period, from October 2024 to September 2025. The analysis draws on aggregated, anonymised insights from millions of members across the world.
