Sleepless in China

Volunteers at the School of Nursing, University of South China, lie on the ground during an event to mark World Sleep Day in Hengyang, Central China's Hunan province, March 18, 2015. Students organized the event to call attention to the health benefits of good sleep. (Photo: China News Service/Cao Zhengping)

"Awake at 11 p.m. loses face, up till midnight loses life", a Chinese saying goes. But why are more and more Chinese delaying their sleep?

The World Sleep Day is coming this Saturday, but Xu Xu, an office worker in south China's Guangdong Province will spend the night in hospital instead of his comfortable king-size bed back home.

Xu had been working extremely hard before he was hospitalized two weeks ago. He used to lead a "seven-to-one" life, get up at seven in the morning and go to bed at one after midnight.

"I used to think that making money was the only thing in my life -- saving for apartment and car, marriage and children," Xu said. Then a sudden illness hit him hard and made him realize the importance of his health.

According to the 2015 China Sleep Quality Index, not only has the number of Chinese suffering from insomnia increased, but they are going to bed later and later.

At 2 a.m., Zhang Xiyan was lying in bed, looking at her phone with dry eyes. She had been holding the phone for three hours. Suddenly the phone fell from her numb hands and hit her in the face. Zhang could not care less. She picked up the phone, changed her position and continued to fiddle with the shining gadget. Finally her eyes blurred and her fingers stopped swiping, but the songs in her earphones accompanied her till the next morning.

"I often pass out playing with my phone in bed, and I never know how late it is," Zhang said.

Prior to World Sleep Day, Xinhua sent out questionnaires to 500 Internet users and interviewed 700 random people on the streets of Guangzhou, the city that tops the "stay up late" list in the 2015 index.

More than 59 percent said they stayed up "playing with their phone". Instead of working or studying, over half of the respondents sacrifice their sleeping time for "browsing new posts" and "clicking 'like' under the posts of their friends".

"Anxiety has prompted more of us to sleep later and less deeply," said Zhou Min, a graduate student of Jinan University in Guangzhou.

An increasingly competitive society makes people more anxious than ever, according to Zhou, who claims young people yearn for self-improvement, but lack the energy to take action most of the time.

"They turn to social media for comfort, can't stop refreshing posts and inevitably become sleepless," Zhou said.

According to the sleep quality index, people living in small towns sleep better than those in big cities; people with low incomes sleep longer hours than their rich fellows; and journalists have the poorest sleep quality.

Some "night people", however, have realized the vicious circle poor sleep causes and found ways to improve their work and lives.

"I have decided to get rid of the Internet, cut off the wifi at home, and turn off the 4G connection on my phone," Zhang said. "I hope I can keep early hours from today."

Mrs. Xu has kicked the habit of staying up, thanks to a healthy diet and moderate exercise. However, many more admit they have failed more than once in persuading themselves to go to bed early for the sake of better sleep.

Over 57 percent of the interviewees chose "lack of self control" as the reason for the failure. Another 30 percent said it was hard for them to go to bed early as "people around me are staying up late".

Some ask for doctor's prescription; some try acupuncture and aroma therapy; and some dig deep in their pockets for imported melatonin.

A developing China is getting less sleep, but sustained development needs more time in bed.