South Korea needs a good, long nap

[rikayla.livejournal.com]

In an effort to boost productivity during the summer months, the city of Seoul is encouraging government workers (paywall) to take a siesta of up to an hour. This might be a good model for the country, which appears to be the most sleep-deprived of the world’s developed economies.



The most recent numbers from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the organization that crunches comparable data on the world’s developed economies, show that South Koreans sleep an average of 469 minutes (7.8 hours) a day. That’s the lowest among the 18 countries for which the OECD gathered data. The OECD average for shuteye is 502 minutes (8.4 hours). The French, who snooze the most among the rich nations, clock 530 minutes (8.8 hours) of sleep a night.

Why such a lack of sleep in Korea? Hard to say for sure, but the Korean propensity to log long work hours likely cuts into workers’ downtime. While that sounds admirable, the Korean workplace culture of rampant overtime and few vacations results in some of the worst levels of worker productivity among the advanced economies.


Source: QZ

Comments

[ababobaby.livejournal.com]

i love siestas

[uledy.livejournal.com]

i wish we took naps in the us. and had shorter work weeks/days, cause our current system is not very efficient.

and idk where these numbers came from, but what a dream to get 8 hrs of sleep ;____;

[shineebambi.livejournal.com]

Right I'm lucky to get 6

[soo-tic.livejournal.com]

Hi! I hope this isn't a bother, but I was wondering what the work week/days are like in the US? I live in Australia and I'm just curious what it's like in America. I want to visit my cousins in Texas but apparently they won't be able to take any time off when I visit :(

[petecarl.livejournal.com]

Full time is usually 8 hours a day / 5 days a week w/ 2 week (10 paid days) vacation + 2 week (10 paid days) sick leave

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm

Part time varies on hours and schedule and typically doesn't provide benefits

This article shows that the above full time info is really mostly for professional office workers who've been working for about 5 years in their career. (Spoiler alert: we still don't have a paid vacation days law on the books)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2013/08/13/paid-time-off-forget-about-it-a-report-looks-at-how-the-u-s-compares-to-other-countries/

[soo-tic.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the information! This really helped me understand my cousins' circumstances more.

I'm still a student so I only work part time, but I know that part time has the same benefits as full time but on a pro rata basis. If I remember correctly, full time gets 4 weeks vacation and 10 days paid sick leave. This applies to everyone and isn't dependent on how long they've been working for their employer (basing this off my friend who's taken her annual leave for valentines day even though she's only worked for half a year and isn't a professional worker).

Does your annual leave accumulate as well? I remember my teacher took a 2 month annual leave to travel around Australia with his family.

[honeebs.livejournal.com]

Nah I would just wait, nothing worst that hitting stage 3/4 sleep 45 mins into your 1 hr nap. That nap sucks.

[missingmisnomer.livejournal.com]

i think every country should have a siesta tbh

[kanbinayume.livejournal.com]

naps are amazing, idk how I survived high school without them

[4minutesluts.livejournal.com]

im incredibly bad at napping i always just fall asleep for like 2 hrs and then mess up actually sleeping at night because of it

[vermicelli-rice.livejournal.com]

Same.

[1111-am.livejournal.com]

Me too except instead of 2 hours it turns into, like 5, then I pretty much don't go to bed at all that night. Nevermind. I think my sleep's just fucked anyways lol.

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

Even if I only nap for 45 minutes, I'll wake up grumpy and hungry and unable to go to sleep until 2-3 hours past the time I usually do.

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

I looooove naps. You have to set a timer so you don't fall into deep sleep to get the most out them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_nap

[sub-divided.livejournal.com]

You gotta set a timer for around 20 minutes so you don't fall into deep sleep

[torontok.livejournal.com]

This nap is required in my country, particularly in summers because aint nobody got time to be up in 40 degree heat

[yulia-eru.livejournal.com]

somehow this statistics seems suspicious. i doubt people actually get an almost 8-hour slleep in Korea. Anyways, if it's 7.8 hours it's not really sleep deprived, is it?

[anonymous-loljk.livejournal.com]

7.8 hours sleep is a luxury! but considering it's an 'average' number, there's bound to be some people with barely 1-2 hours sleep somewhere in the equation so... not gonna judge.

[chibiyunie.livejournal.com]

I function on about 4/5 hours sleep a night for the last 5 years, simply by trying to combine school with a full-time job, delivering the newspaper in the early morning and trying to have some sort of a social life, lol.

I guess it really also depends on the person - some people just need more sleep then others. Although sleeping short nights combined with days of laying in bed all day isn't working either. Even if you sleep less then you should, you should try to sleep and wake at the same time everyday!

[fashionxxavenue.livejournal.com]

i actually take a nap most days at work oop

[tsuyoi-hikari.livejournal.com]

haha me too. While others spent time eating, I have my nap instead since its important lol

[fashionxxavenue.livejournal.com]

lmao i'm lucky that i usually only teach 2-4 hrs a day, so i have a lot of free time to nap

[syrenshaeda.livejournal.com]

"the Korean propensity to log long work hours"
Idk. Norway's just above Korea, and we're super lazy workers.

[kyokomurasaki.livejournal.com]

I really wish everyone would just collectively agree to do away with the 40-hour standard work week because it's too damn long and does nothing for productivity. I read somewhere that people only get an average of about 3 hours of work done in an 8-hour day (and I know I'm one of those people because I'm constantly just dicking around at work lol.) France has the most paid vacation time per any country and a shorter work week IIRC and their productivity is above the U.S.

This just makes me think about those stories you hear about Japanese men literally working themselves to death; I wonder if that's happening in SK too. :(

[modestgoddess79.livejournal.com]

yes, down with the 40 hour work week! It is unproductive and leaves people with no energy during non work hours. Trying to adult is hard, work full time, cook/clean/exercise try to have a social life.

[1111-am.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. I remember I had one part-time job though once where they refused to schedule anyone over 25 hours a week and the shifts were only 5 hours. They had mentioned the same things about productivity. I think it depends on the job though. The job I have now is constantly go-go-go so I feel like I'm always doing stuff. Which is kind of nice cause then the time goes by faster, but yeah...

Ah yes. I watched in interesting, but very sad documentary once about Japanese karoushi.

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

My Korean co-teachers are actually always staying later than the foreign teachers to do their work. On the one hand, they have a lot of calls to make to parents which takes a lot of time, but on the other hand they like to play around on their phones when they could be doing work, So, they have a lot of work, but they're making it stretch out and shooting themselves in the foot, making them stay later than they probably need to.

[soo-tic.livejournal.com]

I've always found it odd watching Korean dramas how involved the teachers are with their students. What do teachers even call up parents for? My parents never got any calls from teachers. They only ever got calls when I didn't show up to class or was feeling sick and needed to go home. And is there a reason why foreign teachers don't call up parents? o.o

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

I don't know what it's like at the public schools, but at private schools/hagwons, like where I work, the Korean teachers call the parents assure them that their child/children are doing well in their classes (even if they're not). If the parents think their children are happy and doing well at the school then the parent will keep them enrolled. If the child stays at the school then the school keeps making money. If the parent takes their child out for any reason then the school loses money and so does the Korean teacher. That's why the Korean teachers always call the parents.

The only reason why the foreign teacher (me) doesn't talk to the parent is easy: We don't always speak Korean good wnough and the parents don't always understand English good enough. The only people I call are the students.

[soo-tic.livejournal.com]

Is that a daily thing? Because it sounds like such a tedious thing to do everyday :/
I don't really understand the though process of how that works though, because students should have the ultimate say. Maybe its because my friends are studying to become teachers, and they're just really passionate about teaching and being involved with their students.

[broadway-bound3.livejournal.com]

It is a daily thing. There are some parents that the Korean teachers have to call every day to make sure the parent doesn't take their child out of the school.

As a westerner I believe that students should have a say over their extracurricular education, but that's not how it works here in Korea most of the time. Especially at an elementary level hogwan like mine. Most of the students are here because their parents want them to be and they can't do anything about it.

[weerainbow.livejournal.com]

Interesting...
One of my terms at college I was getting around 5 hours a night so I used to "power-nap" for 15 minutes when I got the chance lol it did help but once I was finished I basically slept for a couple of weeks straight