By Quaid Najmi

Mumbai, Mar 27 (IANS): In a loud wake-up call, a new survey has claimed that 61 per cent of Mumbaikars feel dozy at work and nearly 35 of them believe they suffer from the dreaded insomnia.

The Great Indian Sleep Scorecard (GISS), conducted by the sleep solutions provider Wakefit.co, attempted to decipher sleep patterns and trends among Indians.

Though Mumbai is known as 'the city that never sleeps' the survey found that 70 per cent of the people here retired only after 11 p.m. -- way past the ideal bed time of 10 p.m.

"Despite going to bed closer to midnight, 29 per cent of the city population was up between 7-8 a.m. and 49 per cent of the people did not feel refreshed on waking up," noted the eye-popper report.

Interestingly, the GISS-2022 had found that 53 per cent Mumbaikars felt sleepy at work which has now shot up to 61 per cent (2023) -- but women outnumber (67 per cent) men (56) on this front.

There is also a steep rise of 34 per cent of Mumbaikars who complained of 'feeling tired and exhausted' after wakeing up in the morning this year compared with 2022.

"The high sleep debt is one of the top causes of excessive daytime sleepiness, leading to the likelihood of people nodding off at work. Though maintaining a bedroom environment that is conducive to sleep is key, the report indicated that 43 per cent of Mumbaikars felt their bedroom ambience has been impacting their sleep," the survey said.

Mumbai medico, Dr. Himanshu Shah said that "sleep disorders are now a very major complaint among all patients coming with any ailments", mostly arising out of fear and tensions of the future for self and family.

Prominent nature therapist and acupuncture expert Dr. Mayie (Shubhangi) Deshmukh said that sleep problems have gone up drastically in the past three years and particularly post-pandemic era due to 'the fear factor and the stress overload' among the people.

The late nights of Mumbaikars are attributed to digital scrolling as it's a proven fact that switching off from digital devices like mobiles, laptops, tablets, televisions, etc., at least an hour before bedtime is optimal for healthy sleep.

Unfortunately, a whopping 37 per cent of "Mumbaikars remain awake till late in the night browsing through social media, while 88 per cent admitted using their phones till just before bedtime", and 90 per cent woke up at least once-twice in the night -- breaking their sleep.

Dr. Shah said that "insufficient or lack of sound sleep" affects the person's health, his productivity in personal and professional life and indirectly impacts the national productivity.

The report also exposed how 31 per cent of Mumbaikars "woke up in the night to worry about their future", and another key factor haunting nearly 35 per cent of the people is they have fallen prey to 'insomnia'.

The GISS-2023 discovered that a prevalent practice for 37 per cent of Mumbaikars was to "to sleep in places other than their beds", contributing to their abject sleeping problems, as a dedicated sleep space is central to building a positive sleep habit and therefore empowering greater sleep affinity.

Dr. Deshmukh said that earlier, there were just 8-10 patients a month with all types of sleep disorders, which has now tripled to nearly 25-30.

"I treat them without medicine... Only with acupuncture and 'panchakarma' the treatment cycle lasts between 2-4 weeks, and a little more for absolute chronic patients," Dr. Deshmukh told IANS.

The sleep issues have become glaring now "as almost all patients ask whether it's due to the vaccination" and Dr. Deshmukh urged the government to seriously look into this aspect on priority before the situation deteriorates.

For GISS-2023, over 10,000 people were surveyed from March 2022-February 2023, across cities, age groups, demographics and has collected around 210,000 responses in the past six years, said Wakefit.co