Work to live, to die, or to be happy?

Editorial This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd) License. Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.-Aristotle If the government cannot create happiness for its people , then there is no purpose for government to exist.-Legal code of Bhutan (1729) Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross Domestic Product. Although the concept of " happiness " has existed for centuries as quoted above, it is not until recently that " happiness at work " has gained attention in occupational health. Nowadays, convincing evidence supports that happier people live longer 1) , healthier 2) , be more productive 3) , and are relatively more successful in their careers 4). We can thus view employees' happiness as one of the major sources of positive outcomes in the workplace. Corresponding to these facts, World Happiness Report was first published in April 2012 in support of the meeting by the United Nations on happiness and well-being, chaired by the Prime Minister of Bhutan 5). Based on this report, Japan has ranked the 53 rd happiest country in 2016 among 157 countries, down from 46 th in 2015, 43rd in 2013, and 40th in 2012. What makes Japan sitting in this ranking? We all acknowledge that Japan has prospered through rapid economic growth during the period of 20 years between 1950 and 1970. And even now, we still hold the world's third largest economy. Indeed, there must be good reasons to explain this paradox. As an occupational epidemiologist myself, I would like to discuss several reasons for being not so happy in Japa-nese workers based on time use and also propose a hint to overcome such situation. First, Japanese people are notorious for being one of the poorest sleepers in the world. We are ranked the second shortest sleep country among 29 countries surveyed 6). French, who slept the most, spend on an average of 8 hours and 50 minutes a day while Japanese spend 7 hours and 50 minutes. Japanese people wake up early as 7:00 AM in the morning but go to bed at 11:30 PM 7). Based on the NHK national time use survey initiated in 1970, sleeping time for Japanese people keeps decreasing by 75 seconds every year. The survey on state of employees' health by the Ministry of Health, …