Physical is one thing, but I just can't see this as being anything but devastating for people's mental health.
Re:The Japanese art of not sleeping
by Godel_unicode on Saturday June 11, 2016 @03:07PM
(#11884826)
That type of "work hard play hard" is a pretty common pattern at universities in the US. Not necessarily all the time, but a couple times a week it can be awesome. The big caveat obviously is you have to be the usually extroverted type of person who likes to go out and get rowdy with your friends.
Re:The Japanese art of not sleeping
by eli_gottlieb on Saturday June 11, 2016 @04:10PM
(#11885111)
>That type of "work hard play hard" is a pretty common pattern at universities in the US.
Yes, but usually we assume that you stop doing that for your health's sake after you finish school.
And I doubt that a lot of people consider it healthy even then.
Some areas of finance in the US adhere to this as well.
In Western terms, I would say it's "bad" from a happiness/relaxation perspective. Not really from the lack of sleep; while I wouldn't say I go as far as the Japanese, I do tend to sleep less than most people... just that all the social machinations around it: e.g. "succumbing" to sleep as a measure of looking virtuous/like a hard worker in front of your peers, for example. I find things like that exhausting and the need to do that would significantly decrease my level of happiness.
But that's just it: happiness is subjective. What makes me happy or unhappy need not be even remotely related to what makes someone else the same. As much as I may think it's weird or undesirable, all that really matters is that the people who live like that are happy with their lives. It's only a problem if they're not.