Singapore is 'most fatigued' country in the world – and we’re tired of it

Singaporeans are a sleep-deprived lot to say the least. From the minute we wake to the minute we lay our heads down in bed, we have to be hyper-connected, hyper-updated and on hyper alert – especially with the pandemic situation. No wonder we are so tired.

And it’s not just the number of hours of sleep we have (or rather, have not) been getting that is causing the so-called power shortage. It’s also the duration we spend at work and on the Internet, at least according to an article posted by UK bedding manufacturer Sleepseeker.

In fact, of the world’s 15 most fatigued countries, Singapore tops the list. In it, we’ve even outdone China and Japan, the only two other Asian countries included.

The “fatigue score” out of 10 that each country received was gleaned from data such as Statista (the average hours and minutes below the recommended eight hours of sleep in each country); Wikipedia (the average number of hours worked in each country per year); and BusinessFibre.co.uk (the daily amount of screen time that people in different countries recorded).

The fourth data source was Google Keyword Planner, which tracked the number of sleep-related search terms in each country. To better represent locations such as China, where the number of Google users is very low compared to its population, they used rate per 100,000 instead of each country's population.

But back to the situation in Singapore. It is no surprise that we're perpetually moaning "so tired" when you look at the number of hours we worked per year in the table below:

COUNTRIES THAT WORK THE MOST HOURS PER YEAR

We accumulate 2,238 hours each year on average – longer than China’s 2,174 hours and even surpassing Japan’s workaholic culture that gave it 1,723 hours.

But the article’s interesting find was Mexico’s top position. Its workers accumulate 2,255 hours per annum – the longest work hours in the world – and perhaps an indication that its “growing economy is impacting the work-life balance of its working population”.

COUNTRIES THAT SPEND THE MOST TIME ON THE INTERNET DAILY

Work aside, the time spent online is also robbing Singaporeans of much-needed R&R – 7 hours and 2 minutes, to be exact, according to the article. But not as much as Brazil (9 hours and 29 minutes) and Mexico (8 hours and 1 minute).

If you're thinking the long work hours might have accounted for the extensive time spent online, the article did not make the connection.

However, Mexico and Singapore (the two countries with the longest working hours each year) did place in the second and third positions respectively for countries that spent the most time daily on the Internet.