Power nap: People sleeping during a one-hour sound healing session at the Li’s sound healing studio in Beijing. — AFP
Beijing: It’s just after midday in a quiet studio in Beijing, and Xuan Yi is finally getting the deep sleep she’s craved for months.
Xuan is one of an estimated 300 million Chinese people suffering from insomnia, the product of a high-stress, high-pressure culture that has left many young people choosing to “lie flat” instead.
She tried everything, she said – from psychological counselling to essential oils.
“I had a lot of work pressure. I could not go to bed before 2am or 3am and had to get up at 7am to start work,” she said.
“I also worked weekends, and my sleep was not very good for a long time.”
But when the curtains close and the singing bowls start humming at healer Li Yan’s studio, she can finally drift off.
To the sounds of a gong, Ukrainian water drum, rainstick and handpans, Xuan and her fellow millennials enter a gentle slumber.
Fifty minutes later, they awake after what they say is the best sleep they’ve had in years – at a cost of 180 yuan (RM119).
“Dozens of people with tense minds lay down together and want to give their brains a short break,” Li said.
“It’s like charging your cell phone battery from 3% to 100%.”
“Pressure”, “anxiety” and “insomnia” are the words Li hears most often.
She says she often fields calls from clients desperate for a break.
Many come from China’s competitive IT industry, which has some of the highest incidents of depression and anxiety in the country, according to a National White Paper on Health.
Giants like Alibaba – whose ex-CEO Jack Ma was notorious for demanding his employees work long hours – have used Li’s sessions as team-building exercises.
Li calls her work “lie flat concerts”, a reference to a popular meme extolling the virtues of trading the high-pressure life for something a little more easygoing.
But the singing bowls also tie into another growing trend: “short escapes”, in which young people snatch small, zen moments for themselves to escape the daily grind. — AFP
