Exhausted Office Workers

The organizing body of the "Forum for Health with Soy Peptide," an internet-based forum, carried out an online survey targeted at 1,032 men and women in their 30s or 40s, married, and working in Tokyo, Osaka or other large cities: the results are suggestive.

Ninety-three percent of salaried workers and working women responded that they were currently tired. Additionally, 70 percent of the respondents felt that their superiors and colleagues at the workplace do not realize just how tired they are. Where the causes of tiredness are concerned, a considerable number of respondents cited "workload" (57%) or "personal relationships in the workplace" (56%).

Three-quarters of the respondents (76%) felt exhausted because of their home lives; 66 percent of male respondents attributed their fatigue to their wives, and 61 percent of female respondents to their husbands. More specifically, the reasons cited by males for feeling exhausted at home were "nagging by wife" (37%); "wife nagging me to put things away" (25%); and "wife talking about uninteresting subjects" (25%), whereas the reasons cited by females for feeling exhausted at home included "husband not helping with household chores" (41%); "husband not putting things away" (29%); and "my daily pace not in accord with my husband's" (26%).

The survey also found that husbands, when tired, expected wives to show concern or express appreciation (e.g. "don't overdo it" (45%) or "are you all right?" (29%)), whereas tired wives tended to expect something more practical from husbands (e.g. "shall I do the cooking?" (43%) or "shall I give you a massage?" (40%)).

As for steps to reduce fatigue, about half of the respondents replied that they did nothing in particular. When asked about possible steps to be taken, a considerable majority, 67%, responded "having a good night's sleep," followed by "having a bath" (33%), "massage" (29%), and other simple and readily-available methods.

It might be interesting if similar international surveys were available for comparison on fatigue among working people.