What are the four types of sleep health?

The sleep duration is adapted to the individual's age and physiological state, the sleep quality is not frequently interrupted, the sleep schedule matches the natural circadian rhythm, and the sleep efficiency is to reduce ineffective waiting after lying down.

Many people’s understanding of sleep health is still based on “everything will be fine if you sleep enough for 8 hours”. In fact, this is not the case. A high school senior kid I met a while ago struggled to get 7 hours of sleep every day, but in order to squeeze in time to study, he would not lie down until 12 o’clock at night. , I had to go through the day's knowledge points in my mind when I lay down, and I had to stay up until almost 1 o'clock before I could fall asleep. I was woken up by the alarm clock at 6 o'clock in the morning, and I directly caught up on sleep until 2 o'clock in the afternoon on weekends. As a result, within a month, I kept getting distracted in class and dropped more than 20 places in the mock test. You see, he seems to have had enough time, but in fact he has to wait an hour to fall asleep. His sleep efficiency is not up to standard. During deep sleep, he is always "interrupted" by knowledge points in his mind, and his sleep quality is also poor. Making up for sleep on weekends completely disrupts his rhythm. Three of the four dimensions are broken, and he cannot recover no matter how long he sleeps.

Another friend who works in cross-border e-commerce is more typical. In order to connect with overseas customers, he has to stay up until 3 a.m. every day and start at 11 noon. He sleeps for 8 hours a day. He falls asleep quickly and rarely wakes up at night. It is said that the duration, quality and efficiency are all fine, but he always feels confused. He was feeling weak, and went for a physical examination and was found to have a slight endocrine disorder. The doctor said that it was because his work and rest schedule was completely contrary to the body's default circadian rhythm, and the secretion patterns of melatonin and cortisol were completely disrupted. Even if the other three dimensions were up to standard, it was not considered healthy sleep.

Of course, there are now different views in the academic community. Some scholars who focus on sleep disorders have proposed that "sleep behavior safety" should be included as a core dimension and the original sleep efficiency item should be replaced. After all, abnormal behaviors such as sleep apnea, sleepwalking, and nighttime teeth grinding will not only affect sleep quality, but may also be life-threatening in severe cases. However, this statement has not yet formed an industry consensus. Most of the sleep problems encountered by the general population still revolve around the four dimensions mentioned above. If you always feel tired after sleeping, don’t rush to buy sleep-aid gummies, melatonin, etc. First, follow these directions to figure out where the problem lies. Most of the time, you can solve most of the problems by adjusting your work and rest and not lying in bed scrolling on your phone.