Only 3 Hours of Sleep? Doctor Slams PM Takaichi’s No-Sleep Bragging and Warns of a National Risk

Three hours of sleep is a risk to the nation

At the special session of the Diet that closed on July 25, all 64 bills newly submitted by the government were passed, and Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi emphasized the accomplishments at a press conference on the 27th. However, as important bills described as dividing public opinion, including revisions to the Imperial House Law and the Code of Criminal Procedure, were passed one after another, there were likely many citizens who felt a strong sense of anxiety and distrust.

That is because shortly after 10 p.m. on July 20, Marine Day, Prime Minister Takaichi posted on her X account (formerly Twitter): “Since becoming prime minister, getting between zero and three hours of sleep has become the norm,” sparking widespread controversy.

Online, criticism poured in, including comments such as, “Please don’t decide the country’s future with a sleep-deprived mind,” and “This is proof that she cannot manage herself.” The story was also covered by overseas media, prompting exasperated reactions such as, “Can she really make sound decisions with that little sleep?”

“It is said that on the morning after staying up all night, your attention level drops to about the same level as when you have been drinking alcohol. When sleep deprivation becomes chronic, judgment deteriorates, and you also lose the ability to control your emotions, making you emotionally unstable. Having the leader of a country constantly sleep-deprived is a serious risk to the nation.”

So says Dr. Masashi Omuro, who has more than 20 years of experience as an occupational physician.

“When I was a resident, it was standard practice for doctors to continue working immediately after an overnight shift, and it was not unusual for surgeons to perform operations after staying up all night. But if you or a family member were having surgery, would you entrust it to a doctor who had been getting no more than three hours of sleep a night for days on end? You wouldn’t want to get on a plane piloted by someone who has been chronically sleep-deprived either, would you?

The prime minister is the pilot of the nation. Isn’t it only natural that we would not want to entrust the steering of the country to someone who is in a condition resembling the aftermath of an all-nighter every day?” (Dr. Omuro; same below)

The brain bug attacking Prime Minister Takaichi

Prime Minister Takaichi is currently 65 years old. According to the sleep-related indicators set out in “Health Japan 21 (Third Term),” the government’s national health promotion initiative, the recommended amount of sleep for people aged 60 and over is six to eight hours. The prime minister is getting nowhere near enough.

In the first place, is it even possible for a person to continue sleeping zero to three hours a day for many consecutive days?

“Basically, you can only last a few days on zero to three hours of sleep. I suspect that the prime minister is probably unconsciously taking microsleeps—momentary periods of sleep lasting several to a dozen seconds—while listening to parliamentary answers or traveling. You may recall that Minomonta was said to often fall asleep during commercial breaks while appearing on live broadcasts. It is a similar state.

There is also an anecdote that Napoleon, who is famous for supposedly sleeping only three hours a night, slept while on horseback. People known for sleeping very little often get fragmented sleep somewhere along the way. However, such sleep does not restore the brain’s ability to make sound judgments.”

Naturally, one would assume that the prime minister must be feeling sleepy and exhausted as well.

“Animals stop moving when they become tired. Even a cheetah stops hunting. But when humans are absorbed in something or feel a heavy sense of responsibility, the brain enters a state of heightened excitement and can conceal the body’s alarm signals telling us that we are tired. You could say that this mechanism of the brain was one of the driving forces behind human evolution. At the same time, however, it has serious side effects.

Death from overwork is directly influenced by this very function. A person may have absolutely no awareness that they are tired and then suddenly collapse one day. Every November is designated as ‘Overwork-Related Death Prevention Awareness Month,’ and there has recently been increasing discussion of this kind of brain mechanism as well.

I think Prime Minister Takaichi is currently in a completely high state because of the excitement of having become prime minister, combined with the enormous responsibility she carries. Compared with ordinary people, she may have become less able to recognize that she is tired.”

Even so, how should we view a national leader carrying enormous responsibilities who cannot calmly and objectively assess even her own health condition?

“Even on the release day of a new Dragon Quest game, I can stay up all night without feeling sleepy at all. But I know that ‘the signs of fatigue are currently being masked inside my body, and I’m in a state similar to having consumed an energy drink.’

This is a bug unique to humans. Once you understand this kind of brain mechanism, you can anticipate it and take action accordingly—that is something humans can do. I would not recommend simply pushing forward because ‘I’m not tired, so I’m fine.’”

Bragging about overwork is uncool Showa-era-old-man behavior

The trend of portraying sleep deprivation as something admirable or as a badge of honor is now a thing of the past. Yet Prime Minister Takaichi, who herself admits that she has something of the old man from a small or midsize Showa-era company about her, still seems to regard working without even taking time to sleep as a virtue.

“When someone in the position of prime minister publicly declares that they haven’t been sleeping, it should be fairly easy to imagine that, in this day and age, they would face criticism from both medical and social perspectives.

The tragic incident involving Matsuri Takahashi occurred in 2015, the Work Style Reform legislation was enacted in 2018, and today bookstores are filled with books about sleep. If she had been even slightly sensitive to the background of the times, she should have realized that promoting her lack of sleep would send the wrong message.”

Having made this observation, Dr. Omuro analyzes Prime Minister Takaichi’s X post as an excessive counterattack against the conventional wisdom of the times.

“The prime minister has also openly described herself as a ‘Kansai auntie.’ Like Emiko Kaminuma, I think she has also gained popularity by firmly cutting through conventional formalities and speaking frankly. I can’t help but feel that, this time as well, half of the post was made in the spirit of pushing back against a work-style reform that had become all about appearances and formalities.”

Following the prime minister’s post, some small and midsize business owners reportedly welcomed it, saying, “It has become easier to say honestly that people who want to work should be allowed to work.”

“However, this does not mean the old idea of cutting back on sleep in order to work more. Working itself is fine, but I feel that an athlete-like mindset of making sure to get enough sleep has become quite widespread even among small and midsize business owners.

There are now very few bosses who impose a toughness-based mentality on their subordinates by telling them, ‘Don’t sleep—just work.’ That has clearly declined dramatically over the past decade.”

The limits of a leader who takes everything on alone

In the post, the prime minister also wrote that since July, I have spent Saturdays and Sundays continuing to read thick stacks of documents from early morning until late at night, and that she had been busy working until dawn, including re-reading the final drafts of documents just before they were to be approved by the Cabinet.

“Perhaps she simply wants to say, ‘Look how hard I’m working.’ But just as employees find it difficult to leave when their boss stays at the office all the time, even if the prime minister has no such intention, it could nevertheless come across as strong pressure to those around her. A post saying, ‘I’m working from early morning until dawn’ is by no means a good message, either to the public or to the bureaucrats working under her.”

Her tireless work habits have also drawn skeptical reactions from businesspeople, who reportedly describe her as fitting the pattern of an inefficient boss who takes everything on alone and does not know how to run an organization or make effective use of subordinates.

“She has also said in the Diet that she carefully reads through the prepared answers and makes her own corrections with a pen, so she probably likes reading documents and is clearly a very diligent person.

However, no matter how diligent someone is personally, it is impossible for the prime minister to handle every aspect of the job herself. Unless she delegates authority appropriately, she will inevitably burn out. For example, the reason she may be reluctant to entrust work to bureaucrats is probably because she does not want them to make mistakes after she hands the work over to them.

The capacity to tolerate such uncertainties is regarded by society as one element of a leader’s caliber. What about Prime Minister Takaichi? Even if she is an excellent player, I cannot help but feel that she has challenges when it comes to being the head of an organization.”

Prime Minister Takaichi has never led her own faction within the Liberal Democratic Party and rose to important positions such as cabinet minister with the strong backing of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose political beliefs were close to hers. Dr. Omuro believes that this career history may also be one reason for her lack of experience in leading an organization.

“When it comes to leading an organization, she is inexperienced and therefore immature, and she seems to have reached the point where she has no choice but to take on the entire vast range of responsibilities that come with being prime minister by herself. Why not restructure her own management system?”

The Showa-style, workaholic approach of marking up piles of documents with a red pen late into the night while repeatedly posting lengthy messages on X is no longer something to be praised; it is nothing more than a risk to the nation.

“There was a time when major business deals were finalized over drinks at night.

Business leaders today are different. They get plenty of sleep and make important management decisions in the morning, when their minds are at their sharpest. That is the trend and the norm.

I hope Prime Minister Takaichi, too, will make decisions that could affect the fate of the nation with a clear mind after getting a proper night’s sleep. As an occupational physician, and as one citizen, that is what I hope for.”

▼Masashi Omuro — Occupational physician. Representative of Omuro Occupational Health Office. Graduated from the School of Medicine, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan, in 2005. After working as Johnson & Johnson’s chief occupational physician and at the occupational health office of Doyukai Medical Corporation, he became independent in 2018 and assumed his current position. He currently provides occupational physician services to approximately 30 companies. His books include “Inside Companies Where Employees Die by Suicide from Overwork” (Shueisha Shinsho).