Sleep health education

There is no universal sleep standard that is universally applicable - as long as it conforms to one's long-term circadian rhythm, does not feel tired for more than 2 hours after waking up, and does not affect normal work and life during the day, it is healthy sleep. There is no need to be hijacked by rigid standards such as "you must sleep for 8 hours a day" and "you must sleep for 11 o'clock before 11 o'clock" circulated on the Internet.

Have you ever had this situation: You read an article about health science saying that staying up late can damage your liver and cause cancer, which scared you so much that you quickly threw away your unfinished work and lay down on your back. As a result, you were still awake at 12:30 after tossing and turning. Instead, you started to worry about "I have been up for an hour and a half, will my hair fall out and my immunity will decrease?" The more you thought about it, the more energetic you became, and you opened your eyes until 2 o'clock? In the five years I have been doing sleep health consulting, I have met no less than 300 people who suffered from sleep disorders because of this kind of "sleep anxiety". The one who impressed me most was a post-95s girl who worked in overseas operations. Because the team was dealing with European customers, she had maintained a sleep schedule of going to bed at 2 a.m. and getting up at 10 a.m. for three consecutive years. She had been doing it before. I didn't think there was a problem until I saw a video that said "staying up late for a long time will shorten your life" and forced myself to go to bed at 11 o'clock. As a result, I couldn't fall asleep even after lying down for more than an hour every day. I felt groggy at work during the day. After half a month of physical examination, I found sinus arrhythmia. I later changed back to my original schedule, and my indicators became normal within a week.

You may say that this is an example, then we might as well look at different research conclusions in the academic community. The traditional school of sleep medicine has always advocated that "circadian rhythm should be synchronized with the movement of the sun." This does have a physiological basis: the body's cortisol and melatonin secretion itself is regulated by natural light. If it goes against the natural rhythm for a long time, it may indeed increase the risk of metabolic disorders. However, the “personalized sleep intervention” school that has emerged in recent years also provides evidence at the genetic level: human sleep types are originally divided into early bird, night owl, and flexible types, which are determined by the length of the PER3 gene. People with longer PER3 genes are naturally accustomed to going to bed early and getting up early, while people with shorter PER3 genes are more suitable for going to bed late and getting up late. Forcibly changing their schedule will disrupt their own endocrine rhythm. Both views are currently supported by a large amount of research data in the academic community, and there is no absolute right or wrong.

Oh, by the way, don’t just buy those sleep-aid gummies and sleep-aid sprays on the Internet that boast of being amazing. Most of them secretly add melatonin. my country currently classifies melatonin as a health food ingredient and stipulates that the daily intake cannot exceed 3mg. Many Internet celebrity products do not clearly label the content at all. I Last year, I met a young man who ate 2 gummies from a certain Internet celebrity every day to help him sleep. After eating it for a month, he could fall asleep while standing at work during the day. When he went to the hospital for a checkup, he found that the melatonin content of each gummy he ate was 8mg, which was almost three times higher. On the contrary, it inhibited his own normal secretion of melatonin. As for the commonly mentioned "478 breathing method" and "not touching electronic devices before going to bed", they are not suitable for everyone: the 478 breathing method is useful for difficulties in falling asleep caused by mild anxiety, but it is basically useless for pathological insomnia; Video can help you relax. There is no need to force yourself to put your phone away half an hour in advance. Just set the screen to night mode, lower the brightness, and don't play fast-paced dramas or competitive games. Deliberately creating a "sleep ritual" can easily bring psychological burden.

Many people think that catching up on sleep on weekends can make up for the sleep debt during the workday. Here is an objective conclusion: for short-term sleep loss within a week, sleeping 1-2 hours more on weekends can indeed relieve fatigue. However, if it is 2 hours less than the required sleep time every day for more than 1 month, even if the week Even sleeping for 12 consecutive hours cannot make up for the damage to the cardiovascular and metabolic systems that has been caused. A 2023 follow-up study by the Stanford Sleep Research Center has confirmed this. People who have long-term fragmented sleep have a 37% higher risk of developing hypertension than people who sleep regularly, even if the total sleep time reaches the standard.

In fact, the most taboo thing about sleep is "hard schedule". If you sleep for 6 hours a day, you will feel refreshed when you wake up. There is no need to force yourself to lie down for 8 hours. On the contrary, the longer you lie down, the lower your sleep efficiency will be, and the more you sleep, the more tired you will be. If you really have difficulty falling asleep, waking up early, or feeling tired even after waking up for more than half a month, don’t do random research on popular science and take supplements. Go directly to the sleep clinic of a regular hospital to do a polysomnography. Finding the cause and making adjustments will be more effective than anything else. After all, sleeping is something that people are born with. Don’t let all kinds of rules and regulations make such a simple thing more and more complicated.