Japan wakes up to the market for a proper sleep

A famous proverb says time is money. So too is sleep, it seems.

A study published in Rand Health Quarterly in 2017 examined the economic burden of insufficient sleep across five OECD countries: Canada, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. It estimated that the various health and mortality risks from lack of sleep could lead to substantial loss — up to $411 billion annually, or 2.28% of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the U.S., and as much as $138 billion for Japan, translating to 2.92% of its GDP, the highest such figure among all five nations.

It’s no secret that Japan has a sleep problem. People here get an average of seven hours and 22 minutes of shut-eye per night, the shortest among 33 countries surveyed by the OECD in 2021.