Verified by 
In many Asian cultures, work is equated with one’s worth. Work is perceived with reverence and cultural honor even if it supersedes your mental or physical health.
For the Japanese, the importance of extolling work is evident because the country ranks as one of the most sleep-deprived nations in the world, getting just over six hours of rest a night.
The average person in Japan sleeps just six hours and 15 minutes each night, an hour less than in the U.S. and Switzerland, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article. This puts Japan at the bottom of the list of developed countries.
“Working long hours without a break and everyone working together until the end of the day — this is traditionally how Japan has done things,” says Reina Hyakuya, a manager at Nextbeat Co., a Tokyo recruitment consulting firm.
But progressive companies in Japan are trying to change this tradition. They are beginning to offer napping rooms where workers are encouraged to take naps of up to an hour to recharge.
Nextbeat, an IT service provider, went as far as setting up two “strategic sleeping rooms” — one for men, the other for women — at its headquarters in Tokyo. The aroma-infused rooms feature devices that block out background noise, allowing workers to stretch out on sofas for an undisturbed nap. Mobile phones, tablets, and laptops are banned.
Some companies even offer financial incentives to persuade their employees to shun overtime and get to bed at a reasonable hour. The wedding planning company Crazy awards employees who sleep at least six hours a night with points that can then be exchanged for food in the company cafeteria. Using an app to monitor their sleep, workers can accumulate points worth as much as 64,000 yen (£458) a year.
But this cultural shift has largely been met with scorn and contempt, as the Japanese find it shameful to take pre-meditated naps even if companies encourage it. What is honorable about nodding off at your desk?
Brigitte Steger, a University of Cambridge lecturer who has studied Japanese sleeping habits, distinguishes between a nap and what Japanese call inemuri, or roughly “nodding off.” The Japanese characters for the word more literally translate to “sleeping while present.”
“Inemuri is very different” from a nap, says Dr. Steger. “It’s not taking off your shoes and withdrawing, it’s actually, ‘I am actually at work.’ You are still officially working even if you drop off.”
Dr. Seiji Nishino, who runs Stanford University’s Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, says Americans tend to view the outcome of their work as important, whereas Japanese are more focused on the process, including “how they are seen working hard.”
Being seen in a designated nap room would be viewed as dishonoring, shameful, and culturally unacceptable. Europeans working in Japan have also noticed the cultural stigma themselves.
Louis Lapouille moved to Japan a year ago from France and sometimes joins his French co-workers at his Tokyo import-company employer going to conference rooms for a 20-minute siesta. He endures suspicious glances from Japanese colleagues, he says. “You can feel some of the people on the Japanese side judging us.”
Japanese colleagues “leave later, work harder, and don’t nap,” Mr. Lapouille says.
While this issue sounds like one of just getting more rest, there can be dire consequences in East Asian countries where work and workaholism have led to deaths from overworking. In Japan, it’s known as "karoshi." In China, it’s called "guolaosi" while in South Korea the term is "gwarosa." These are all similar ways of culturally defining those who die from overworking either due to heart attacks, strokes, stress or starvation diets. The RAND Corporation cites that individuals who sleep fewer than six hours a night on average have a 13 percent higher mortality risk than people who sleep at least seven hours.
I applaud the efforts of some of these companies in reshaping not only ideas about work and productivity but also their desire to reshape unhealthy cultural norms and perceptions about work. Work is what we do, not who we are. Let's hope this message sinks in for future generations in Asia.
References
