What if falling asleep could earn you a cash prize? In Japan, dozens of contestants recently competed to do exactly that, turning a 90-minute nap into a full-fledged sporting contest.
Held in Tokyo on October 5, the unusual event, called “Matt Race by Koala”, saw participants lie down on mattresses and compete to achieve the best sleep. The winner took home 2.22 million yen, roughly Rs 12 lakh, along with a Koala mattress.
How Does A Sleeping Competition Work?
Participants were fitted with sleep-monitoring devices before settling onto mattresses for a 90-minute sleep session. Their performance was not judged simply by who fell asleep first. Organisers calculated a special sleep score based on factors including sleep depth, sleep quality, time taken to fall asleep and sleep stability.
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The contest was held in three rounds, with around 20 participants in each round. Organisers even introduced unexpected “sleep disturbances” during the event to test whether contestants could continue sleeping through them.
Inside the dimly lit venue, contestants were seen sleeping with monitors attached to their heads, while some hugged stuffed toys or other sleep aids.
The event attracted huge interest, with organisers saying they received more than 45,000 entries and the selection process had odds of more than 760 to one.
Why Did Japan Hold A Sleep Race?
The quirky competition was also designed to draw attention to Japan's sleep deprivation problem.
“Japan is often described as a country suffering from sleep deprivation, and people here are very diligent,” Riichiro Nakama, creative director at organiser Koala Sleep Japan, told AFP.
“By turning it into an event like this, I think we can get people to sleep together, raise interest in sleep,” Nakama said.
OECD data cited by AFP showed that Japanese people slept an average of 7 hours and 24 minutes a day in 2021, the lowest among OECD countries. Long working and commuting hours, along with a busy nightlife economy, have been cited as contributing factors.
For the contestants, however, the event offered a rare opportunity to simply lie down and sleep, with a sizeable reward waiting at the end.
“It was over in an instant. I almost wish I could have slept a little longer. It was a happy competition,” participant Chisato Honda, 32, told AFP.
The overall winner, identified only by the nickname Suimii, said the prize money would help with moving expenses. “I want to live on my own, so I think I'll use the money for the moving costs. I also want a bed like a princess's, so I think I'll buy that bed,” Suimii said.
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