New Survey Shows Almost Half Of S’poreans Don’t Sleep Enough

Last Updated on 2019-05-13 , 7:52 pm

I‘ll be honest.

I found it dramatically ironic that my fat boss tasked me to write about sleep this morning, or the lack there-off.

I’ll confess.

I slept from 2 AM till 7:20 AM this morning.

two plus two equals five right (if you aren’t the wiser, read: 1984)

Coupled with the fact that I’m a Literature major and counting is to me what a straw means to a Hippopotamus (it means jack all), I’m sure I slept for at least the recommended seven hours of sleep a day for adults aged 18 and over.

Except that my colleague beside me pointed out that Egyptians could count stars and that 2 AM till 7:30 AM was actually a paltry 5.5 hours.

I don’t know who David Reimer is, but he has a book called ‘Count like Egyptian’ so my colleague is right

You Thought, I Think, YouGov confirm

In an article published by The New Paper on 12 Dec 2018, incidentally also the night I slept <7 hours, TNP shared that international market research agency YouGov published the results of a survey which found that roughly 44% of Singaporean adults sleep for less than the recommended seven hours of sleep per day.

In a stunning discovery not unlike finding extinguished cigarettes in your uncle’s ashtray, YouGov confirms what we, sleepless Singaporeans, have long thought was the stark reality of our 221st-century life; that we sleep as much as a hibernating polar bear stays awake.

Lest you think that the sample size was small, the survey results were drawn from a pool of 1,022 Singaporeans, which is more than the number of friends on my, my brother’s and my neighbour’s dog Facebook accounts combined.

I know all about you, in fact, I know the name of your future child’s favourite Nickelodeon cartoon in 2028 

And if Facebook is any useful, other than for the obvious information-mine when it comes to marketing agencies or the US government, Facebook stats are the ultimate reflection of reality.

In other words: the survey is blardy legit.

Who does it affect more?

Additionally, what stood out too was that while 3 per cent of those surveyed had fewer than four hours of sleep a night, a twofold increment of 6 per cent of individuals in a family with a combined income < $4000 expressed that they had less than 4 hours of sleep each day.

No, this piece isn’t going to be another piece of Get Real or Regardless of Class, which I’m sure more than a whiff of you caught it.

I’m not about to go into a class-race-stratification discussion or deep-dive into what these documentaries actually do for class-race-stratification, for which you can find here and here.

But do let me say my apolitical piece:

That the rich get more and the poor get less, and that my readers, includes sleep.

Then How?

So we’ve now established that the survey is legit and that Singaporeans are sleepless.

That income levels, too, have an effect on sleep.

Are we to be mired then, forever, in a tale-spin of waking twilight, forever hauling our zombie asses on a train to Bishan or elsewhere, depending on where you work?

Zombies mouth agape screeching ‘worrrkkkkk worrrrkkkkkkk’

Fortunately, the survey in a side note established too that anywhere between 32% to 61% of Singaporeans – depending on age group – sleep with a ‘comfort object.’

And if you don’t know what a comfort object implies or is; you are either a Martian or a doubly-fictitious character like him below.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

The true superhero I really wanna meat

A post shared by SGAG (@sgagsg) on Dec 10, 2018 at 8:19pm PST

Gong Hei Fat Choy

This, my friends, is what a comfort object, better known as Chou-Chou colloquially, is.

Arrrrr my lover…come bao bao me…

So while the survey, as TNP points, showed “no indication, however, that those who slept with a “comfort object” got better or more sleep than those who did not,” I put my personal writing credibility on the following statement:

That who sleeps with a Chou Chou sleeps better and more.

Yes, even to the detriment of my neighbours’ ears as my alarm rings in an endless loop of snooze, for I too, have a Chou-Chou my wife would love to incinerate.

I dare you, for those with a Chou Chou, tell me you don’t sleep better, nor longer with your Chou-Chou?

I dare you, I double dare you.

And thus Chou Chou, for its divine generosity which knows no age, race, gender or class, and which lends its fluff to people from all walks of Singaporean life is, I propose, the soma for our very own Sleepless in Singapore.

Yes, Sleepless in Seattle was a great movie for you young ones. I have no time to make a meme, so say meme