Around 68 percent of the residents of Guangzhou in south China
suffered from sleep disorders in 2006, making Guangzhou the most
sleep-deprived city in a recent survey.
The Information Times reports around 58 percent of the
adults in each of the cities in the survey admitted they suffered
from a sleep disorder last year on average. Prominent market
research company TNS conducted the survey across six Chinese
cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Tianjin, and
Hangzhou.
Most of the adult respondents said they found it difficult to
fall asleep and frequently woke up in the middle of the night.
More than 40 percent of the respondents in Guangzhou said they
found it hard to sleep for a long time. Around 15 percent said they
suffer from insomnia several times a week.
The sleep disorders were exacerbated because only 13 percent of
the insomniacs sought treatment at hospitals, only 23 percent of
which consulted other professional medical staff, like
psychologists.
Psychiatrist Fan Changke from the Guangdong Provincial People's
Hospital said insomnia is caused by stressful modern lifestyles,
huge living pressures and improper sleeping habits.
Fan said the simplest way to judge if someone is suffering from a
sleep disorder is to see whether he or she can rise at the correct
time. He added the best way to treat insomnia is to correct bad
sleeping habits and suggested people go to sleep before 11 o'clock
at night.
(CRI March 23, 2007)