Sleep health reference is here

The core conclusion of this article is put at the top: There is no unified sleep health standard that suits everyone. There is only one core basis for judging whether your sleep is healthy - whether you feel no obvious fatigue within 1 hour after waking up and can enter the working and living state normally. Maintaining this state for a long time will not cause any clear damage to your health.

A while ago, I helped a friend who works in Internet operations to adjust her schedule. She used to follow the "8-hour golden sleep formula" on the Internet. Even if she finished changing the plan at 3 a.m., she would set an alarm clock for 7 a.m. to force herself to get up. After half a month of hard work, not only could she be distracted for ten minutes while staring at the background data at work, the acne on her cheeks had disappeared, and her physical examination also revealed that her cortisol was high.

Interestingly, the academic community has actually been arguing about sleep duration for many years. The traditional school of sleep medicine has always advocated "complying with the circadian rhythm" and believes that 11 pm to 3 am is the golden period of deep sleep. People who are asleep during this period generally have a 15%-20% higher proportion of deep sleep than those who stay up late. It is also more effective in repairing body damage and consolidating memory. This conclusion is supported by a large amount of evidence-based evidence on melatonin secretion and cortisol rhythm. It is also the academic source of the saying "early to bed and early to rise is good for good health" that many elders talk about.

But in recent years, the research on "individual differences" has gradually gained more recognition: A study published in "Sleep Medicine Reviews" in 2023 followed 10,000 people for 5 years. It showed that people with natural "late personality" (that is, what we often call night owls), as long as they remain fixed for a long time. A regular schedule - for example, going to bed at 2 a.m. and waking up at 10 a.m. every day, with a complete sleep cycle (every 90 minutes is a complete sleep cycle, and the average person needs 4-6 cycles) has no significant difference in the risk of cardiovascular disease and metabolic diseases compared to a "morning personality" who goes to bed early and gets up early. To put it bluntly, compared to "what time to sleep", "whether the work and rest are regular" and "whether the sleep cycle is complete" have a greater impact.

The problem that many people are most anxious about is "not being able to sleep when lying flat". Researchers in different fields give different suggestions. The core "stimulus control method" in the CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia) system, which focuses on non-drug intervention for insomnia, clearly states: If you are still not sleepy after lying down for 20 minutes, don't just lie down and count sheep. Get up quickly and go to a dimly lit place to do it. Do something that is completely mindless - such as folding dry clothes, flipping through two pages of a professional book that you have long forgotten, and then going back to bed when you feel sleepy. The key is not to associate the bed with "anxiety about not being able to sleep", otherwise it will be more difficult to fall asleep next time you lie in bed. But friends who work in geriatric medicine also mentioned another idea to me: middle-aged and elderly people should not copy this method. If they fall in the dark, the gain will not be worth the loss. Even if they can't fall asleep, lying on the bed with their eyes closed to rest their minds, the body's relaxation level can reach about 60% of deep sleep, which can still have a restful effect.

I also stayed up late at night when I was working on a project two years ago. The most exaggerated period was when I only slept 4 hours a day for 5 consecutive days. After the project, I tried to sleep for 12 hours at a time. When I woke up, I felt light-headed and couldn't even drink two cups of coffee to relieve myself. Later, after asking a familiar sleep doctor, I learned that catching up on sleep is also important. Don’t catch up for too long at one time. Sleep 1-2 hours more than usual every day, and catch up for 2-3 days in a row. Just make up for the missed sleep cycle, and you will feel much better after waking up.

There is also a lot of quarrel about "can you touch your mobile phone before going to bed?", but I don't think it is necessary to be so strict. We really want everyone to completely disconnect from electronic devices one hour before going to bed. Many young people who are accustomed to using their mobile phones will become anxious and unable to sleep. If you really want to play, set your phone to warm night mode and lower the brightness to the lowest level. Don’t watch short videos that only last ten seconds or so with a punchline, or cool articles with ups and downs in the plot. Instead, watch boring content with little emotional impact, such as industry reports, ancient book annotations, etc. Many friends around me say that they make me sleepy after watching it for ten minutes, which is much more effective than melatonin.

To be honest, many people’s sleep anxiety nowadays is framed by various “standards”. Some people can feel energetic all day after sleeping for 6 hours, while others still feel unresponsive after sleeping for 9 hours. These are all normal individual differences. There is no need to stick to other people's standards. If you are really tired after being awake for a long time, snoring loudly and holding yourself back while sleeping, don't buy sleep aid products blindly. Go to the hospital to do a polysomnography after a night of sleep. You can find out all the problems clearly. It is much more reliable than searching online for a long time to scare yourself.