Sleep, health, and life in Japan

I was puttering around online recently when I stumbled across a study about sleep quality in different cities around the world. I thought it was a fascinating topic — I think we all know how we feel when we don't get enough sleep on a daily level (grouchy, irritable, lacking motivation, more inclined to opt for junk food to keep us going), but there are so many longer term effects like increased risks for cardiovascular issues, obesity, and even diabetes. The fact that sleep quality was measured not on an individual level but on a global level really piqued my interest.

The study measured sleep quality with a number of different factors in mind. Things like light pollution, noise pollution, and the number of hours worked in a week were all taken into consideration when calculating how well individuals in a city would likely be snoozing.

I found it interesting that Tokyo was actually listed as the 5th best city globally for sleep quality. I definitely think that overall Tokyo is a lot quieter than many other cities I've visited or lived in, but I've also seen houses located far closer to train lines and expressways here — and I can't imagine those kinds of conditions lend very well to high quality sleep. Maybe I'm wrong though, and the background noise ends up working like a white noise machine after a while!

I've always wondered about how people sleep well if they live extremely close to expressways and train lines here -- but apparently, Tokyo offers quite impressive sleep quality. Pic Credit: Pedrik/CC BY NC-SA 2.0

Another thing I found interesting was Tokyo scoring so positively when work hours were taken into account for this study. Numerous other studies have put Japan at the top of the list for the number of hours worked in a week, and I don't really think you can have great sleep quality when you're overdoing it at work all the time. Also, other studies have seen Japan perform very poorly on the sleep quality scale, coming in right towards the bottom.

I know that for me personally, when I lived right in Tokyo my sleep wasn't great at all. I'm definitely a sleeper who needs silence (maybe that's why Niigata countryside living appeals to me so much), and there were just too many external noises creeping in to our home. 

Do you find your sleep quality here in Japan is better or worse than back home? Are there any particular factors that influence it?