And miles to go before I sleep

Greecejapan_Sleep
© Grigoris A. Miliaresis

Together with the homeless in Shinjuku Station and the inhumanly congested trains, also in Shinjuku Station, images of the Japanese sleeping in the trains are perhaps the most characteristic of modern Japan and are used excessively, mostly by decriers of Japan’s culture to illustrate the, not always pleasant conditions of life in Asia’s most developed country. And even though my standard position against stereotypes is that of reservation, I would be lying if I said that I too haven’t been concerned by this phenomenon: it is so extensive and so much beyond any discrimination in sexes, ages, social class or times that it is hard to just attribute it to a habit. In other words, even before I did some research I had almost reached the conclusion that the people in Japan suffer from sleep deprivation.

A few months after I came here, I happened across the scientific explanation, coming from an international organization called “World Sleep Federation” which those days held its 6th international congress in Kyoto (incidentally the head of the organization is also Japanese, at least by ancestry): the Japanese, and especially the Tokyoites do indeed sleep less than the people of any other developed country. More specifically, they sleep in average 6 hours/day, that is, 14% than what sleep specialists recommend; the study also mentioned that they sleep 36 minutes less than the people in New York and 54 minutes less than the people in Paris. If we add to the above the fact that the average Tokyoite spends one hour of their life in the train every day, it’s not surprising that they use this hour to make up for the sleep they are lacking.

Sleep specialist limit their research to what is happening –assumptions and the conclusions on “why” fall on the shoulders of sociologists and anthropologists, scientists and amateurs. Speaking from the position of the latter, I would say that the reason is obvious and it is, once again, the way Japanese society is organized: it burdens its members with much more obligations than most other contemporary societies with the result that most people cut down on the only time they have for themselves, that of sleep. If we also take into account the, Confucian in origin, self-denial from which these obligations stem from and lead to, it is unavoidable that most people would defy the, irrefutably harmful consequences sleep deprivation has –those who consider it a small price to pay for “being Japanese” should remember that it is one of the most effective methods of torture.

Grigoris A. Miliaresis is a journalist and translator. He has worked for many newspapers, magazines and publishing houses and specializes in the Internet, the martial arts and Japan where he has been living for the last few years. 

GREEK

Γρηγόρης Μηλιαρέσης
Γρηγόρης Μηλιαρέσης
Δημοσιογράφος και μεταφραστής. Έχει συνεργαστεί με πλειάδα εφημερίδων, περιοδικών (τόσο του γενικού όσο και του ειδικού τύπου) και εκδοτικών οίκων και με ειδίκευση στο Ίντερνετ, τις πολεμικές τέχνες και την Ιαπωνία όπου και ζει τα τελευταία χρόνια. Από το 2012 μέχρι το 2016 έγραφε την εβδομαδιαία στήλη στο GreeceJapan.com "Γράμματα από έναν αιωρούμενο κόσμο" και το 2020 κυκλοφόρησε το ομότιτλο βιβλίο του. Περισσότερα στη συνέντευξη που είχε δώσει στο GreeceJapan.com.

Η αναδημοσίευση περιεχομένου του GreeceJapan.com (φωτογραφιών, κειμένου, γραφικών) δεν επιτρέπεται χωρίς την εκ των προτέρων έγγραφη άδεια του GreeceJapan.com

ΔΙΑΒΑΣΤΕ ΕΠΙΣΗΣ

Citius, Altius, Fortius

The first time I came to Japan, in the summer of 2009, all public spots were filled with advertisements promoting Tokyo's bid for the...

Festive

Its standardization in both appearance and content makes the theory about its origins going back to the Kyoto Imperial Court of the Heian Period...

In the kitchen

In a little over a year from today, a big change is going to happen in the urban landscape of one of the most...

The low country

In Europe, when we say “low country” we mean Holland, the Netherlands. And of course, geographically speaking we are correct but if we come...

Grande dame

He was born in Nagasaki, the only truly cosmopolitan city of Japan, its only contact point with the outside world for more than 250...

The Rite of Sports

Its name evokes images of the national holidays that used to characterize the Soviet Empire; considering that Japan never went through a soviet phase,...

Kyoto on the other hand

In the consciousness of both Japanese and foreigners, it is what Tokyo isn’t: the hub of Japanese culture, the heart of its tradition, the...

A festival for a rebel

The realization that Asakusa’s Sanja Matsuri  is not included in the “Three Great Shinto Festivals of Edo” was too hard for someone who, like...

Πρόσφατα