Recent study once again ranks Japan as the country that sleeps the least

Japanese men and women seem to sleep as much as one hour less than people from other countries.

In 2014, we shared a study that suggested that Japanese citizens sleep far less than their international counterparts. Four years have passed, and it seems like that still holds true. Using worldwide data compiled through their Polar A370 and Polar M430 model fitness trackers, Polar Electro’s Japan branch revealed that once again, Japan is lacking in the sleep department.

The data compares male and female fitness tracker users from 28 countries all over the world, and reveals that Japanese men and women sleep an average of 6 hours and 35 minutes per night, which is 45 minutes less than the international average, and nearly an hour difference from Finland, whose users seem to sleep the most.

The top five countries where men and women got the most sleep on average were:

1. Men: Finland (7:24), women: Finland and Belgium (7:45)
2. Men: Estonia (7:23)
3. Men and women: France and Estonia (7:23 and 7:44 respectively)
4. Men and women: Austria (7:21 and (7:36, respectively)
5. Men: Holland (7:20), women: Holland and Canada (7:41)

▼ They probably wake up nice and refreshed everyday, like this girl.

The U.K. also ranks fairly highly, eighth for men and eleventh for women, while the U.S. ranks a bit lower, sixteenth for men and thirteenth for women. The five bottom countries, where men and women got the least amount of sleep, with five being the least, were:

1. Men: Colombia (6:49), women: China (7:11)
2. Men: Brazil (6:47), women: Colombia (7:10)
3. Men: Israel and Hong Kong (6:42), women: Hong Kong (6:59)
4. Women: Israel (6:51)
5. Men and women: Japan (6:30 and 6:40 respectively)

Chinese men also slept little compared to other men, with an average of 6 hours and 52 minutes per night, but Japan takes the cake for both sexes barely surpassing six and a half hours of sleep per night. In fact, only seven countries’ men and three countries’ women averaged less than seven hours per night, which makes Japan’s short sleeps even more significant.

▼ Our guess is that this guy isn’t from one of the top five.

What’s interesting is that, despite Japanese workers’ infamously long commutes to work, they’re not getting up any earlier than most of their counterparts. They are, however, going to bed much later. Men in Japan on average go to bed later than those in almost every other country except Hong Kong, Brazil, China, and Spain, and the only women who went to bed later than Japanese women were from Hong Kong and Spain. However, women slept more and went to bed earlier than men in all of the countries, though about half woke up earlier than men.

These results don’t include the age or occupation of the participants, and it’s important to keep in mind that this is also a group of presumably fitness-minded individuals, judging from the fact that they own and regularly wear a fitness tracker. They could be making more conscious efforts to sleep longer than others, so these results may skewed, and should be taken with a grain of salt. That might also be why this group of Japanese men and women has slept more than the group analyzed in the 2014 study, though without a control group, it’s hard to say.

▼ It is probably why you can often see people sleeping on the train in Japan, though.

Nevertheless, it’s an interesting collection of data, and despite the differences with the 2014 group, the study still came to the same conclusion: Japanese people sleep less than other people. That might give cause to wonder why Japanese men and women go to bed so late and sleep so little, and naturally the first thought that comes to mind is that the Japanese work very long hours, with lots of stress that can result in lack of sleep. Social obligations after working those long hours, like company drinking parties, which are an integral part of Japanese work culture, may also be why Japanese men and women are going to bed so late.

On the other hand, there are plenty of ways to catch a snooze during the day in Japan, like on the train, at a sleep cafe, or even with a magical sleep-inducing massage. It could be that all of these little snoozes throughout the day are making up for Japanese workers’ lost sleep in the end.

Source: IT Media News via Otakomu
Top image: Pakutaso
Images: Pakutaso (1, 2, 3)

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