The coronavirus pandemic has impacted every area of life around the world. Some of the people who struggle most are the Chinese, which was the original epicenter of where the pandemic began.
According to the Chinese Sleep Research Society, their research indicates that people take 2-3 hours longer to go to sleep each night. As a result, more than 300 million people are struggling with sleep disorders in China.
More Time At Home is Not Leading to Better Sleep
Of course, due to the pandemic, everyone is spending more time at home. You might think that this would translate into more sleep or having an easier time falling asleep, but the opposite seems to be true.
Over the past year, the study found that a lot of respondents took two to three hours longer to fall asleep, and online searches about sleep disorders have increased significantly.
More than 75% of the 300 million Chinese struggling with sleep disorders can’t fall asleep until after 12 pm. Nearly 33% cannot fall asleep until 1 am.
Social Media Discussion of Sleep Loss
China’s citizens can’t access the social media used by most of the world, but they have Chinese alternatives. On China’s version of Twitter, Sina Weibo, the topic of prolonged time to fall asleep was viewed 470 million times. Over 410,000 people had joined the discussion.
TV show hosts are publicly mentioning feeling sleepy during the day and not at bedtime. These comments are getting a lot of attention and sympathy from online users. Many other people agreed that they were tired during work but not at night.
Advice From Sleep Experts
Sleep experts have been reminding people in China that the old rule of “8 hours of sleep” isn’t necessarily true. The focus is to get enough sleep to get four to five cycles of light to deep sleep. Hopefully when the pandemic eases, people can get back to better and more normal sleep routines.
Source: Chinese Sleep Research Society
