The Nasdaq-listed company Sohu's CEO Zhang Chaoyang touted a bizarre four-hour per day sleeping habit he has been practicing over the years during a media interview, while netizens doubted the reliability of the claim by pointing out his lethargic state in public.
Zhang revealed that he spends only four hours in bed every day in a video interview with Caixin.com on Aug 10, which triggered widespread debate on social networking sites.
"I usually sleep for two hours and wake up to do something else, say, making vegetable juice, and then I'll have another two hours of sleep," Zhang said. "I've kept this sleep schedule for nearly two years. It makes my day more productive."
Some seemed willing to take his advice, commenting that they would like to give it a shot, while others argued that eight hours of deep sleep is usually deemed "common sense". "Is it your sleeping habit that makes you always look drowsy every day?" asked a netizen in a teasing tone.
Good sleep is crucial for health. But some unorthodox sleeping habits have now caught on among people eager to milk more productive hours from the day.
For example, theories like Vinci Sleep refers to a total of two hours of sleep per day where one takes a 20-minute nap roughly every four hours, while the Everyman Sleep Cycle consists of 15- to 30-minute naps spaced throughout the day, totaling one and a half to two hours of shut-eye per day.
Such sleeping habits may be adopted by those who want to increase their waking hours, but are they safe and suitable for everyone?
"No," said Liu Xiangyun, associate chief neurologist at Jiangsu Provincial Hospital on Integration of Chinese and Western Medicine. She told Yangtze News that some people really can function well with less than the recommended eight hours of sleep per night. "No one can confirm that sleeping for eight hours is good or not. Some are 'morning birds', while others are 'night owls'… it's regulated by our internal circadian biological clocks," she added."But a 15-minute nap is too short for you to enter a deep sleep mode," Liu pointed out. "Even though you take many short naps throughout the day, you'll still feel tired and sleepy."According to Liu's advice, it's best for most people to go to bed before 11 pm, the time when our body starts releasing melatonin. Besides, sleeping too much is not recommended. "Oversleeping also causes side effects, such as tiredness and an increased risk of contracting cardiovascular disease, " Liu said.Click here for audio and translation of the story