Sleep health manager

We are not salesmen selling sleep aid products, nor are we chicken soup bloggers who only say "go to bed early and don't play on your phone". We are professional practitioners who can solve more than 80% of non-pathological insomnia and sleep rhythm disorders through non-medical intervention. We will not ask you to buy a sleep aid worth thousands of yuan, nor will we force you to go against your living habits to get "8 hours of perfect sleep".

A 32-year-old Internet operation girl who was in charge of an e-commerce promotion project just concluded the case last week. When she came to see me, her eyes were so dark that she felt like she had been punched twice. Three or four sleep aid products were poured out of her bag: melatonin, sleep gummies, steam eye masks, and lavender aromatherapy. She said, "I have tried everything, but my eyes are still open after lying down for two hours. If I can't fall asleep again, I'm going to prescribe sleeping pills." I didn't rush to give her a plan. I first asked her to go back and keep a sleep diary for three days, which was accurate to the time she lay in bed, how long it took to fall asleep, how many times she woke up at night, whether she caught up on sleep during the day, and what she was doing one hour before going to bed. When I got the diary back, I saw the problem at a glance: She would take a 40-minute nap after lunch every day. Sometimes she would stay up until 2 o'clock in the evening to catch up on her schedule. When she didn't have a plan, she would lie down in bed at 9 o'clock to catch up on her sleep. Her daily routine fluctuated by 3 hours in a week. Her sleep rhythm was as chaotic as a ball of yarn scratched by a cat. No matter what sleep aid product she used, it was useless.

It’s quite interesting to say that there are actually two completely different views on intervention methods in the industry. No one is right or wrong, but the applicable scenarios are different. One group is a purely behavioral intervention group, relying entirely on CBT-I (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, currently a first-line intervention program for insomnia recognized by the World Health Organization). It is not even recommended to use health products. It relies entirely on sleep restriction and stimulus control. Several old-school colleagues I know will get scolded for drinking calming tea, let alone melatonin. The other group is the comprehensive intervention group. They believe that if you have had insomnia for more than 3 months and have conditioned anxiety when lying in bed, and the latency to fall asleep exceeds 45 minutes, you can use low-dose compliant sleep aid products as a transition in stages. First, break the negative conditioned reflex of "lying in bed = unable to sleep", and then slowly adjust your behavior without forcing it. I am more flexible when doing my own cases. If the client has just suffered from insomnia for less than a month, or has had a few late nights recently and his sleep schedule has been disrupted, he can basically recover in two weeks through behavioral adjustments. If the patient has become chronic insomnia and becomes anxious as soon as it gets dark, then use some gentle intervention to buffer it first, which will be more efficient. There is no need to stick to a school.

The first thing many people ask me when they come to me is "Is it abnormal that I only sleep 6 hours a day?" ”“Am I going to be depressed? ”In fact, the 2023 survey data of the Chinese Sleep Research Association is here: the incidence of insomnia among domestic adults is 38.2%, but less than 10% of it is pathological insomnia that requires treatment in a psychiatry or sleep department. The rest are all functional sleep problems induced by behavior, emotion, and environment, which happens to be our service scope. Moreover, sleep needs vary from person to person. If you sleep 6 hours a day, are not sleepy at any time during the day, and have enough energy to go to work, exercise, and spend time with your children, then it is not considered insomnia at all. There is no need to force yourself to get 8 hours. I met a 58-year-old aunt last year who came to me with a sad face and said she woke up at 5 o'clock every day and couldn't sleep anymore. She felt that she was seriously ill. When I asked her, she went to bed at 9 o'clock in the evening. She danced for two hours during the day and was not tired. She could also go back to make lunch for the whole family. I sent her home directly and told her that after the age of 50, the sleep requirement will drop to 5-7 hours. Her sleep quality is better than that of many young people, so don't be anxious.

Our usual work is actually not that mysterious. The first step is always to check for risks: for example, is there sleep apnea? It means that you suddenly wake up after snoring, and you can fall asleep even while sitting during the day. In this case, we directly recommend going to the otolaryngology or sleep department of the hospital for monitoring. It is most likely an airway problem, which is not our responsibility. After eliminating pathological problems, we will give you a plan based on your sleep diary, living habits, and work nature. We will never use a unified template. For example, if you are a shift nurse, you cannot be forced to sleep at 11 and wake up at 7, right? I have to give you a rhythm adjustment plan specifically for shift work, and teach you how to use light and diet to adjust the timing of melatonin secretion. ； If you are a mother who has just given birth to a baby and has to get up to feed her twice a night, then you need to be taught how to use fragmented sleep time to regain your energy instead of forcing you to sleep the whole night.

It’s no wonder that everyone is biased against our profession. In the past two years, there were indeed many organizations claiming to be sleep health managers, and they would sell you sleep aids and sleep aid mattresses worth thousands of dollars. These are not formal at all. My peers who are serious in this industry will not force you to buy any products. The core fee is the service fee for consultation and plan adjustment. They will adjust the plan with you throughout the process. For example, if you are going on a business trip this week, you will have to temporarily adjust your sleeping method during the business trip. If you have to work overtime this week to catch up on a project, you will also have to change your work schedule accordingly. We will not just give you a plan and leave it alone.

Last week, the operations girl sent me a message and took a picture of the bedside table she had emptied. She said that now she can fall asleep after lying down for 15 minutes. Melatonin has been stopped for almost a month. All the sleep-aid products she had stocked up on were given to her best friends. She said, "It turns out that I can sleep well without relying on those messy things." In fact, after working in this industry for a long time, I feel that most people's sleep problems are really not that complicated. Most of the time, they are just confused by the messy pseudo-health concept, coupled with blindly trying various useless methods, turning small problems into big problems. Find the right direction and adjust much faster than you think.