Across China, a growing share of younger generations are battling chronic sleep disturbances that experts say are not just a lifestyle issue, but a visible symptom of deeper unaddressed struggles with mental health. For 23-year-old Cheng Jingyang, a postgraduate student at Hangzhou Dianzi University currently completing thesis fieldwork in Beijing, the nightly battle with insomnia is a daily reality. Even after cutting all caffeine from his diet, enforcing a strict early digital curfew for his phone, and spending more than 1,000 yuan ($146) on a viral social media-recommended memory-foam “deep sleep pillow”, he still lies awake long after midnight, his mind racing with nonstop worry.
Cheng describes the experience as an exhausting paradox: his body feels drained from a full day of work, but his brain refuses to slow down. “It’s like a browser with 30 open tabs, and you can never track down which one is playing the sound you keep hearing,” he explained. Even though he acknowledges the expensive pillow is unlikely to solve his problem, he says he feels compelled to try anything that might offer even a small chance of relief. His endless circular thoughts jump between unfinished thesis work, uncertainty about the competitive job market, and a throwaway comment from a professor made weeks ago that he cannot stop replaying in his head.
Cheng’s experience is far from an isolated case. New national public health research reveals a steady, concerning decline in average sleep duration across the country, with the sharpest issues concentrated among younger age groups. Data from a 2024 nationwide study conducted by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which surveyed more than 100,000 residents across the country, found that people aged 15 and older now get an average of just 7.24 hours of sleep per night. Two decades ago, comparable surveys put the national average at around 7.5 hours — a seemingly small 15-minute drop that public health researchers warn amounts to a major public health concern when scaled to China’s 1.4 billion population.
A deeper breakdown of the survey data highlights the disproportionate burden falling on young people. On average, Chinese adults spend roughly 30 minutes lying awake before falling asleep, but that number is significantly higher for younger respondents. Young people not only go to bed much later than previous generations, but also take far longer to fall asleep, and a growing number are turning to over-the-counter sleep aids and commercial sleep products in a desperate search for relief.
Findings from a separate 2024 white paper published by the China Sleep Research Society, based on a survey of more than 10,000 people, add more context to the trend. The report found that post-millennial college students born after 2000 spend an average of eight hours per day interacting with screens, with the majority of respondents saying they do not put their phones down until well after midnight. For many young Chinese, these new national statistics only confirm what they have already experienced firsthand: getting consistent, quality sleep has become a daily struggle, and for a growing share, it has developed into a diagnosable medical condition linked to underlying anxiety and depression.