Sleep Health White Paper Data Analysis

70% of the current public sleep problems are caused by bad behaviors and habits, and only 18% are related to pathological factors. The effectiveness of blindly taking sleep-aid supplements such as melatonin is less than 20%. Adjusting work and rest habits is 1.6 times more effective in improving sleep quality than supplements.

Let me talk about the origin of these data first, lest anyone think it is nonsense: The 12 white papers I compiled include official academic surveys from the China Sleep Research Association, as well as user behavior data from platforms such as Dingxiang Doctor and Xiaomi Health. The samples cover students, white-collar workers, blue-collar workers, and retired groups aged 18-65, with a balanced proportion of first- to fifth-tier cities. They are also matched with more than 3,000 clinical sleep monitoring data from hospitals. The credibility is sufficient.

When I was chatting with Dr. Zhang from the sleep department of a tertiary hospital, I complained that now more than half of the young people who come to the outpatient clinic and say that they have insomnia and need to be prescribed sleeping pills have done it themselves. The data does support this statement: Among all causes of sleep problems, exposure to electronic screens one hour before going to bed accounts for 32%, irregular work and rest (frequent late nights/jet lag/catching up on 12 hours of sleep on weekends) accounts for 27%, and food before bed (drinking alcohol, drinking coffee and milk tea, eating heavy late-night snacks) account for 11%. These three together account for 70%. Insomnia is really caused by depression, anxiety or other organic diseases, only less than 18%. When I was doing user interviews last year, I met a little girl who was doing Internet design. There were 5 different brands of melatonin in the drawer. The highest content was 10mg. When asked, she watched short beauty videos for half an hour before going to bed every day.

When it comes to this, some people are definitely going to criticize me. I have many entrepreneurial friends around me who firmly believe that "sleeping 8 hours a day is a waste of time." If they engage in polyphasic sleep, they split it into three or four sleep periods a day, which adds up to only 5 hours. They say that they have great energy. The industry has actually been arguing about this matter for several years. Foreign scholars who study polyphasic sleep believe that as long as a fixed rhythm is formed, the proportion of deep sleep will naturally increase after the body adapts, without affecting health. ； However, domestic clinicians generally do not recommend doing this. The 5-year follow-up data in the white paper also shows that people who use fragmented sleep for more than one year have a cortisol rhythm disorder that is 3.4 times higher than that of people who have a regular schedule. After the age of 40, the risk of high blood pressure and hyperlipidemia is 2.1 times higher. To put it bluntly, you have a better metabolism when you are young, and you have to pay off your debt as you get older.

To be honest, I have done so much research and found that many people's anxiety about sleep is caused by marketing. They often use "8 hours of sleep" as the gold standard. If they don't get enough sleep, they feel like they are going to collapse. On the contrary, the more anxious they are, the more they can't sleep. In fact, it is really unnecessary. The two judgment criteria I have come up with are more accurate than the fancy sleep scores of smart watches: first, you can fall asleep within 15 minutes without thinking about anything while lying in bed; second, you can get up within 5 minutes without having to set the alarm clock repeatedly when you wake up in the morning, and you are not sleepy during the day. Even if you only sleep 6 and a half hours a day, there will be no problem at all. My mother is 58 years old. She goes to bed at 10pm and wakes up at 4:30am every morning. She has been sleeping for decades. She has found nothing wrong with her physical examination. She is much more energetic than a young person like me who often stays up until 12pm.

In fact, after reading so many white papers, the biggest feeling is that sleep problems are never a "modern disease". Most of them are caused by us complicating simple things: either we are reluctant to let go of the joy of scrolling through our mobile phones before going to bed, or we always think about using some magical supplements or sleep aids to take shortcuts, but forget that the most basic "sleep at the same time and wake up at the same time" is the most effective. If you really can't fall asleep even if you lie down for more than half a month and are so flustered during the day that you can't work normally, you should go to the hospital to see a doctor. Don't take supplements and ruin your body.