Sleep health lecture

90% of the problems that trouble ordinary people such as difficulty falling asleep, shallow sleep, and tiredness after waking up do not need to rely on drugs or Internet celebrity sleep devices. Adjusting daily behavior habits can be significantly improved. Excessive pursuit of "standardized sleep" may actually aggravate sleep anxiety.

Last week, I was sitting in a sleep consultation position at a community health service center. I met a 62-year-old Aunt Zhang. She came in with three boxes of melatonin of different brands. She said that she had heard a short video saying that melatonin had no side effects. She had been taking it for half a year. Now she could lie down for two hours with her eyes open. When she woke up the next day, her head felt as heavy as a wet quilt. I have come across no less than 40 similar cases in the past six months. They were either Internet employees who forced themselves to go to bed at 11 o'clock and lay in bed until early in the morning, crying anxiously, or students who set 5 alarm clocks for 8 hours and woke up and fell asleep, but the more they slept, the more tired they became. It just so happens that a lot of people have been asking about sleep problems recently. Today I will break down some of the most controversial points. They are all real situations that I have encountered in front-line consultations. They are not false.

Let me tell you something interesting. I attended a national sleep medicine symposium before, and scholars from two groups argued for almost 20 minutes over whether to go to bed at a fixed point. Traditional sleep guidelines have always recommended a "fixed schedule." No matter how long you slept the day before, you should get up on time the next day to help the body establish a rhythm. But now more and more researchers in the field of behavioral sleep suggest that if you are still awake after lying down for more than 20 minutes, there is no need to lie down hard. Instead, it will cause the brain to establish a conditioned reflex of "bed" and "awake anxiety". It is better to get up and sit in the dark for a while, or turn two pages of a paper book that is not that interesting, and then go back to lie down when you feel sleepy. I met a young man who worked on an algorithm before. He forced himself to go to bed at 11 o'clock. The longer he lay down, the more anxious he became. It was common for him to open his eyes until 1 o'clock. Later, he changed it to go to bed whenever he felt sleepy. Instead, he could fall asleep in 20 minutes most of the time. Even if he occasionally went to bed at 12:30, he would feel better the next day than before. Really, sleep is sometimes like eating. If you try to eat when you are not hungry, you will definitely suffer from indigestion.

There is also a question that is asked a lot, "Is taking a nap good or not?" and there is no unified answer. If you have difficulty falling asleep at night, it is best not to take a nap for more than 20 minutes, and try to end it before 1 p.m. Otherwise, when melatonin is secreted in the evening, you will not be sleepy enough, and of course you will not be able to fall asleep. But if you sleep well at night, even if you sleep for an hour at noon, it doesn't matter. You don't have to stick to the "standard nap length" online to embarrass yourself. If I stay up late the day before to catch up on cases, I will catch up on 20 minutes of sleep at noon the next day, and I am much more efficient in the afternoon.

As for melatonin, which is the most frequently asked question, let me stress it again: it is not a magic drug to help you sleep. Evidence-based medicine has confirmed that melatonin only has a clear effect on people who are jet-lagged or over 65 years old and have insufficient melatonin secretion. Healthy young people who take it for a long time may inhibit their own melatonin secretion. I met a college student who stayed up for three days to catch up with the finals. After that, he took two melatonin pills every day. After half a year, he had to take four pills before he could fall asleep. After he stopped, he had insomnia all night, and it took almost three months for him to return to normal. Of course, some scholars believe that short-term consumption of small doses (no more than 1 mg per day, no more than 14 days in a row) will not have too many side effects. This is a matter of opinion, but I still recommend that you don’t eat it on your own. If you really want to take it, ask your doctor first.

There are also all kinds of sleep devices, sleep-aid aromatherapy, and sleep-aid gummies. Use them if you think they are useful. If they don't work, don't suspect that there is something wrong with you. I have a colleague who relies on wearing earplugs to help me sleep. When I wear earplugs, my ears feel swollen. I always wear a steam eye mask when I go on a business trip. My best friend uses a steam eye mask and feels too stuffy to sleep. These are all supplements and there is no "must use" standard.

Finally, to be honest, there is really no need to worry about whether you slept enough for 8 hours. Some people are born with short sleep, and they can still feel energetic during the day even if they sleep for 6 hours a day, while some people only need 9 hours of sleep. As long as you don’t feel tired during the day, and don’t often wander off and make you sleepy, then your sleep will be fine. If you really can't fall asleep after lying down for more than an hour for more than a month, wake up very early in the morning and can't fall asleep again, and feel so confused during the day that you can't work and live normally, don't buy health care products blindly. Go to a sleep clinic of a regular hospital to do a polysomnography to find out the reasons and make adjustments. This is better than anything else.