{"id":601709,"date":"2026-07-24T09:04:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T09:04:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/601709\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T09:04:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T09:04:57","slug":"despite-tokyos-push-for-a-4-day-week-japans-prime-minister-sleeps-just-zero-to-three-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/601709\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite Tokyo’s push for a 4-day week, Japan\u2019s prime minister sleeps just \u2018zero to three\u2019 hours"},"content":{"rendered":"

As workers push for better work-life balance<\/a> and four-day workweeks<\/a>, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi<\/a> is moving in the opposite direction. The 65-year-old leader set off a firestorm on social media when she shared her plans for Sea Day\u2014a public holiday when many Japanese citizens head to the beach.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s holiday felt like such a true blessing\u2014finally getting a full five hours of sleep for the first time in ages,\u201d Takaichi wrote on X<\/a> in a post that\u2019s garnered over 35 million views. \u201cEver since taking office as prime minister, zero-to-three hours has been the norm.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Takaichi, the lack of sleep and working \u201cfrom early morning until late at night\u201d is something she believes is largely a point of pride rather than a cause for concern. For the past several weekends, Takaichi added she\u2019s been \u201choled up\u201d at the prime minister\u2019s residence reading stacks of documents tied to her legislative agenda.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Unlike in the U.S., the official residence of the Japanese prime minister does not employ domestic staff like housekeepers, so Takaichi said the holiday also gave her enough time to tackle a backlog of household chores, including ironing handkerchiefs and undergarments and sewing frayed skirt hems and loose jacket buttons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can dive back in and give it my all starting tomorrow!\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s prime minister has long embraced marathon hours\u2014and critics say it\u2019s a problem<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s hardly unusual for world leaders\u2014or Fortune 500 CEOs<\/a>\u2014to boast about grueling schedules, Takaichi has developed a reputation for pushing herself to the extreme.<\/p>\n

After becoming Japan\u2019s first female prime minister in October 2025, Takaichi said she planned to \u201cdiscard the term \u2018work-life balance\u2019 for myself. I will work, work, work, work, and work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon after taking office, she faced scrutiny for summoning staff to a meeting at 3 a.m.<\/a>\u2014an action she later linked to a broken home fax machine, requiring aides to help her access another office before an early meeting.<\/p>\n

Her latest comments about surviving on little sleep<\/a> have revived concerns about whether such a schedule is sustainable. The National Sleep Foundation recommends<\/a> adults ages 18 to 64 get seven to nine hours of sleep each night, while adults 65 and older should aim for seven to eight.<\/p>\n

Opposite lawmaker Toru Kunishige warned that chronic sleep deprivation, \u201cimpairs judgment\u2014 much like a state of intoxication\u2014and could pose a risk to national crisis management,\u201d reported The New York Times<\/a>. Another politician argued that\u00a0 \u201cresting is also a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortune reached out to Japan\u2019s prime minister office for further comment.<\/p>\n

While Japan\u2019s Takaichi glorifies long hours, Tokyo is pushing workers to do the opposite<\/p>\n

The debate over Takaichi\u2019s schedule is particularly striking because the country has spent recent years moving toward a more flexible work culture after several high-profile cases of \u201ckaroshi,\u201d<\/a> or death from overwork.<\/p>\n

In Tokyo, government officials implemented a four-day workweek policy<\/a> last year in an effort to boost work-life balance amidst rising burnout and falling birthrates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must build a society where everybody can balance work and family life, and one step forward is the four-day workweek,\u201d Governor of Tokyo H.E. Yuriko Koike<\/a> told Fortune<\/a> last year. \u201cFlexible systems like this allow both women and men to choose a work style that reflects their circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

The push also reflects changing expectations among younger workers. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Gen Z say work-life balance is a top priority<\/a> when choosing an employer\u2014ranking it ahead of pay, according to Randstad\u2019s<\/a> 2025 Workmonitor report.<\/p>\n

Advocates have argued that shorter workweeks can improve both well-being and productivity. In 2019, Microsoft<\/a> Japan tested a four-day workweek and reported a 40% increase in productivity<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As workers push for better work-life balance and four-day workweeks, Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is moving in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601710,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[174],"tags":[79,2788,179,18,4732,254423,19,17,386,3521,25812,8639,7634,5654,5660],"class_list":["post-601709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-careers","tag-economy","tag-eire","tag-flexible-work","tag-flexible-work-schedule","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-japan","tag-lifestyle","tag-prime-minister","tag-tokyo","tag-work-culture","tag-work-life","tag-work-life-balance"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116974159540552527","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601709\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}