“Long Journey into Sleep” is about those people who can' t sleep at night
Some don't have the time to sleep, some suffer from insomnia
Some choose to stay up
We call them the disadvantaged group sleep-wise
Actually most of us belong to this group
Especially people living in cities
They seldom sleep very well
My name is Yuan Bo, and I'm the director of "Long Journey into Sleep"
It covers a wide range of professions
Doctors, media workers, students, drivers
Entrepreneurs, managers in international companies
And those who work in the computer industry
Over a dozen different professions
The investigation and preparation took us rather long
The whole production lasted almost a year
During that time
Our average sleeping time was less than three hours
"Let's bring the first caller on air"
“That's Mr. Li”
“Hi, hello, I'm listening”
"My grandmother wanted me to go back to my hometown"
There is a program called "With You Till Dawn" on Radio and Television Shanghai
It's a late night program
The callers either have a story to tell or have something on their mind
We were looking for people suffering from insomnia, and this program came to our mind
Working in Zhangjiang, Shanghai, a place packed with IT workers
From a village in Shandong, grew up with his grandmother
He was basically the backbone of his family
Leave Shanghai or not, he was 32 years old, and not having luck in love
Multiple reasons made him depressed
"I'm filled with negative thoughts and depression"
"These thoughts keep me up to 4, 5 in the morning"
Zhang Cheng from a startup company
You can tell from his dark circles that he seldom slept well at night
He almost lived in his office, leaving his family unattended
"Why do we need so much sleep"
"We can save time to do our own things"
"You have to leave something behind"
According to a report in 2017 from WHO
There were at least 54 million people in China
Who were depressed or were prone to depression
If you do the math, you will find
That 3~4% belong to the disadvantaged groups sleep-wise
The average sleep time is shorter in the first-tier cities than in the second-tier cities
While that of the second-tier cities is shorter than third-tier cities and countryside
People who live in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen have the shortest sleep time
People living in these cities
They either suffer from severe insomnia or have to work overtime
You will realize that poor sleep quality and insufficient sleep time
Affect us significantly in a bad way
And you are not really trading your time for efficiency
The reason we focus on sleeping issues is that we want people to sleep well
We want people to understand the importance of sleep
And what damages can lack of sleep cause to our mind and body