Leading Japanese sleep experts warn that a national sleep deprivation crisis could have serious consequences for society.
Japan in February announced new sleep guidelines for people, recommending that infants 1-2 years old should sleep 11-14 hours a day, children 3-5 years old should sleep 10-13 hours, and elementary school students should sleep 10-13 hours a day. 9-12 hours, middle school and high school students 8-10 hours. Adults sleep at least 6 hours and older people do not sleep more than 8 hours a day.
Naohisa Uchimura, professor at Kurume University and director of the Japanese Sleep Research Association, said that “the guideline content is very good but the question is how to disseminate them to the Japanese people”.
“After the war, Japanese people cut down on sleep time and spent more time studying, contributing to economic growth and improving educational levels. Now they are paying the price. Average life expectancy is high but the number is high. The years of healthy living are not high, the level of happiness is also low. We need to reflect again,” Mr. Uchimura said.
Customers test a service that measures human movements, snoring, and facial images while sleeping in a capsule hotel in Tokyo on May 16, 2022. Image: AFP
Research conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2021 found that the average Japanese gets 7 hours and 22 minutes of sleep per night, the least among the 33 countries studied. Statistical data from the Japanese Ministry of Health in 2019 shows that on average 37.5% of men and 40.6% of women sleep less than 6 hours per night.
Another study conducted by the University of Tokyo and published in March concluded that final year elementary school students in Japan sleep 7.9 hours per night, middle school senior students sleep 7.1 hours, and fifth year students sleep 7.1 hours per night. At the end of high school, I slept 6.5 hours. This amount of time is much less than the minimum amount of sleep to ensure health.
This is not the first time Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has issued sleep guidelines. Previously, the 2014 guideline listed 12 articles, recommended that “good sleep contributes to the prevention of lifestyle-related diseases”, and called on people to improve sleep quality and ensure enough sleep.
Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa, director of the International Institute of Sleep Medicine at the University of Tsukuba, believes that comprehensive education programs need to be conducted to avoid people becoming increasingly sleep deprived.
“The problem lies in education,” Yanagisawa said. “Too many people wish there were 28 hours a day so they could do more, learn more, then go home, have more leisure time, and finally go to bed. They consider sleep as It’s not important, this is a huge mistake.”
He said people need to treat sleep “like a home loan, prioritize it every day and get enough sleep.” To do this, Dr. Yanagisawa recommends that people “set aside 7-8 hours for sleep, then arrange other things such as study, work, and entertainment in the remaining time.”
He warned that the consequences of not getting enough sleep are poor mental and physical health, poorer work and study performance.
Experts believe that social pressure makes it harder for people to sleep. “For many years, Japanese people have always been taught to study harder and work more,” Yanagisawa said. “Diligence is highly valued and there is always pressure for people to be more diligent.”
According to him, Japanese people believe that people who sleep often are lazy and this thinking is deeply ingrained in children’s minds when they are in elementary school, meaning they “have to sacrifice themselves” from a young age.
“I can say that the majority of Japanese students lack sleep. This becomes a problem that they consider normal for the rest of their lives,” Yanagisawa said.
Professor Naohisa Uchimura gave an interview in January in Kurume, Fukuoka. Image: Mainichi
Izumi Tsuji, a professor of cultural sociology at Chuo University, Tokyo, said that when he was in school, “he only slept 5-6 hours a night” because he had to study and listen to the radio or television. Nowadays, when social networks are full of information, there are even more factors that distract children from sleep.
“At night, students are under pressure to study, but in my generation, the radio is always on and when I finish studying, I want to do my own work, so I go to bed late every day,” he admitted. “Of course, the next day when I went to school, I was always sleepy.”
Tsuji said that in adulthood, things did not get better. He wants to sleep for 8 hours but can never do it. “There are too many things to do, whether it’s housework or social work,” he said. “I usually go to bed at midnight or 1 o’clock.”
Yanagisawa warns that lack of sleep is linked to depression, cancer, cardiovascular disease, immune system damage and infections, resulting in people losing the ability to control themselves. Little sleep also affects labor productivity, making people work less effectively and make mistakes more easily.
Some studies show that lack of sleep can affect short-term memory and is linked to Alzheimer’s disease. “I think the government is right to worry about people’s lack of sleep because I am also very worried,” Yanagisawa said.