"People's regular sleeping time is being disturbed by many factors brought by the fast-paced modern life and people's living habits," said Prof. Zhang Xi, deputy director-general of the China research association of sleep at the meeting.

Pressure is the major reason for sleeplessness, and Zhang said an individual, as a part of a complicated social network, has to worry about lots of issues such as relations with colleagues, families, friends, clients and neighbors. Those worries become a major origin of psychological pressure.

Statistics show that 38 percent of people in the world have sleep dysfunction problems.

According to the result of a study conducted in 2000 by N. Kotchabhakdi, a Thai specialist, over half of the 3,668 surveyed people admitted that they suffered sleeping problems in the previous year and 75 percent of them said they had experienced sleep dysfunction. Among them, 80 percent believed pressure caused their sleeping problem. Participants of the survey came from Thailand, the Philippines and Taiwan.

More and more people enjoy spending their nights at clubs, pubsand other entertainment places, that means these people don't fall asleep until dawn hours, according to Zhang.

Meanwhile, many people cannot get to sleep because of the snoring of their spouses or roommates, and many others find it hard to enjoy good sleep hours because of smoking, drinking or other habits, Zhang added.

Scientists said sleeping dysfunction doesn't get the public attention it deserves, even though more people are suffering from the problem than before.

Now people are facing a far more complex world full of opportunities and competition, so it is really a good idea for a person to have enough and good sleep before setting out to do anything else, scientists said.

(Xinhua News  Agency  March 4, 2004)