Sleep health knowledge

There is no need to stick to the unified standards of "sleep 7-8 hours a day" and "must fall asleep before 11 o'clock". First, find your own "energy threshold" and maintain a stable sleep rhythm. It is much more useful than forcibly matching other people's schedules.

This conclusion is not casual. It is an individualized approach that has been increasingly advocated by the global sleep science community in recent years. The widely circulated saying that "adults must sleep for 7 hours" is actually a universal reference value given by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine in 2015. But interestingly, 10-year tracking data released by the Stanford University Biological Clock Research Center last year showed that about 1 in the population % of "natural short sleepers" only need 4.5-5.5 hours of sleep a day to stay energetic throughout the day, and about 5% of long sleepers need 9-10 hours to get enough sleep. A hard sleep of 7 hours will leave them in a state of long-term sleep deprivation. Don't tell me, I have a friend who works in graphic design who is a typical short sleeper. He goes to bed at 1 a.m. and wakes up at 6 a.m. every day. He rarely even drinks coffee during the day. I always felt that my work and rest were "abnormal" before. I did a sleep monitoring and found out that it is in my genes. I have been anxious for several years.

What many people don’t know is that rhythm stability is actually more important than sleep duration. There was a visitor who worked in cross-border e-commerce before. He followed the schedule of American customers and went to bed at 4 a.m. and woke up at 1 p.m. This schedule was considered by many health-preserving people to be a "death-seeking". However, he persisted in it for three years. Except for a slight vitamin D deficiency (after all, he couldn't get sunlight), his annual physical examination showed that all other endocrine and cardiovascular indicators were normal. On the contrary, he was in much better condition than before when he forcibly changed his schedule for the sake of "health" and could not sleep until 3 o'clock every day. To put it bluntly, as long as the difference between the time you fall asleep and wake up every day does not exceed 1 hour, whether you go to bed early and get up early or go to bed late and get up late, your biological clock will be stable, and the impact on your health will be much smaller than a chaotic schedule of "go to bed at 10 o'clock today and go to bed at 2 o'clock tomorrow."

When it comes to insomnia, many people’s first reaction is to take melatonin. In fact, there are different opinions in the academic community: Domestic clinical consensus generally does not recommend that ordinary people take melatonin continuously for more than 3 months to avoid inhibiting their own melatonin secretion and worsening insomnia.； However, many sleep clinics in Europe and the United States will prescribe low-dose (within 1 mg) prescription-grade melatonin to patients with chronic insomnia and extremely low levels of their own melatonin secretion, allowing long-term use. It is not a magic drug for sleeping, nor is it a scourge. It is best to do a sleep monitor before taking it to see if you are really lacking it. Don't just buy the 10mg health supplement and eat it blindly. On the contrary, the more you eat, the more you can't sleep.

I worked on a project for a week, and my rhythm was completely messed up. I kept my eyes open for two hours after lying down. I used a small method in CBT-I (cognitive behavioral therapy), which is the internationally recognized first-choice non-drug treatment for insomnia: lie down for 20 minutes and still don’t fall asleep. Don’t lie down, just get up without turning on the headlights, find a paper book that you find most boring, and turn two pages. Wait until your eyelids tremble before going to bed. Repeat for two or three days and you can basically get back to it. It’s much more energetic than lying down and scrolling through your phone.

By the way, there is another pitfall that many people step on: forcing yourself to take a nap. Many health-preserving contents say that a 20-minute nap at noon is equivalent to 2 hours of sleep at night, but it is not suitable for everyone. I have a colleague who read this kind of content before. He never slept at noon and forced himself to sleep on the table. As a result, he felt groggy all afternoon after sleeping and sometimes had a headache. Later, he simply stopped sleeping and took a walk to soak up the sun at noon. In the afternoon, he felt more energetic. At present, there is indeed no unified conclusion on the attitude of the academic community towards naps. Some people are suitable for catching up on sleep in a short period of time, while others will interrupt the sleep rhythm throughout the day. Your own comfort is the first priority.

In fact, sleep is complicated and involves all aspects of genes, rhythms, and living habits. It is simple and simple. You don’t have to worry about the length of deep sleep and the time to fall asleep on various sleep apps. It just depends on your state after getting up the next day: you don’t need to drink two cups of coffee to get through the morning, you don’t get distracted during meetings, and you still have the energy to go for a walk after work. Then your sleep is healthy and more reliable than any standard.