Sleep health education

The vast majority of people do not need to rigidly pursue the unified standards of "sleeping enough for 8 hours a day" and "must fall asleep before 11 o'clock". As long as they are energetic during the day after waking up, there is no sustained loss of concentration, drowsiness and fatigue, and the long-term sleep rhythm is stable, it is considered healthy sleep.

I have been in a sleep clinic for nearly 6 years, and the patients I have seen most are not patients with real organic sleep disorders, but people who are frightened out of sleep anxiety by various pseudo-health knowledge. A while ago, a 28-year-old Internet operation girl came over, holding a bag full of sleep gummies, sleep spray, and a head-mounted sleep device. She said that she only slept 6 and a half hours a day. She must be seriously sleep deprived, and she would die suddenly if she continued. As a result, she was monitored for 3 days of sleep, and the duration of deep sleep and the proportion of REM sleep were all within the normal range. She herself said that she rarely felt sleepy at work. She only panicked when someone in her circle of friends said, "Sleeping less than 8 hours is a chronic suicide." In the end, no medicine was prescribed, so she was asked to stop all the messy sleep aid products and stop looking at the duration of the sleep app every day. Less than two weeks after she returned, she sent a message saying that she had never worried about sleeping again.

In fact, there has always been controversy about the time to fall asleep. The traditional Chinese medicine health school emphasizes "sleeping at midnight to nourish the liver and gallbladder" and advocates entering a deep sleep state before 11 o'clock. This statement is indeed applicable to "larks" who are accustomed to going to bed early and getting up early, but the "chronotype theory" of modern sleep medicine "It is also clearly stated that there are 15%-20% of "owl-shaped" individuals in the population, and the biological clock itself is 2-3 hours later than ordinary people. As long as the rhythm of going to bed at 2 o'clock and waking up at 10 o'clock is maintained for a long time, the sleep cycle is complete, and there will be no clear negative impact on health. We also took over a young man who was doing back-end development before. His family scolded him every day for staying up late and hurting his liver. He himself was very anxious. After the test, all sleep indicators were normal. He didn't even need to drink two cups of coffee during the day to write code, so he was told to go back to sleep as he should.

Oh, by the way, many people also ask whether sleep aid products are subject to IQ tax. There is actually no unified answer to this. Take melatonin, for example. The current academic consensus is that it only has a clear alleviation effect on short-term sleep disorders caused by jet lag and night shifts. my country now classifies it as a health food rather than a drug. Long-term use in large doses will inhibit the secretion of melatonin, so there is no need to take it every day. ； As for aromatherapy, sleep-aid sprays, and sleep-aid audios, they essentially serve as suggestions by relaxing your mood. If you use them and feel that you can sleep well, you can use them. It is not a waste of money. It is not necessary to say that they have any magical therapeutic effects.

I rarely give patients a list of "10 things not to do before going to bed". It's so anti-human. Who can resist touching their mobile phone twice before going to bed? If you really want to change, it is better to replace short videos and games with slow-talking audio books or podcasts, adjust the brightness to the lowest level, and listen to it for ten to eight minutes. When it is boring, you will naturally feel sleepy. It is much better than forcing yourself to close your eyes and keep thinking about other things. And everyone always talks about catching up on sleep on weekends. Does it make you feel dizzy every time you wake up at noon? In fact, it is equivalent to forcing yourself to cross two or three time zones on the weekend. Of course it is uncomfortable if your biological clock is messed up. Get up at most one hour later than usual to catch up on sleep. When you wake up, don’t lie down and check your phone. Sit up and drink a warm drink and take a few steps. It is better to relieve fatigue than sleeping all morning.

Don’t panic if the occasional “ghost presses on the bed” happens. It’s just sleep paralysis. Most of it is caused by recent stress and being too tired. Move your tongue and roll your eyes and you’ll be relieved soon. Don’t believe in those messy feudal superstitions. Unless it happens more than three times a week, don’t consider coming to the hospital for examination. By the way, there is another very interesting research controversy. There is no unified conclusion in the academic circles as to whether "sleep debt" will accumulate. One group believes that the damage of losing one hour of sleep every day for a week is irreversible. The other group believes that as long as it is not a long-term sleep deprivation and occasionally stays up late once or twice, the body can adjust itself without putting too much psychological burden.

All in all, the most taboo thing about sleeping is "exerting too much force". The more you regard it as a task to be completed and the more you stare at it for several minutes, the more likely it is that you will suffer from insomnia. If you really feel that you have a problem with your sleep, don't blindly search for self-test charts on the Internet to get the correct answer. Go to the hospital for a polysomnography, which is more accurate than any other folk remedies or assessment.