sleep health day

There is no universal golden sleep duration, and there is no need to force everyone to go to bed early and get up early. As long as your schedule is fixed for a long time and you don’t feel obviously tired for more than 4 hours after waking up, it is a healthy sleep that is suitable for you.

Last week, I went to the outpatient clinic with a sleep doctor whom I know well. I met a girl born in 2000 who came in with a "standard sleep schedule" printed online. She said that she strictly went to bed at 10 o'clock and got up at 7 o'clock for almost three months. Instead, she had migraines every day and lost a third of her hair. In the past week, she could not fall asleep until 2 or 3 o'clock. Her situation is actually very typical - 2024 survey data from the Chinese Sleep Research Association shows that among the more than 300 million people in China with sleep disorders, more than 60% of the problems come from anxiety caused by "deliberately catering to standardized sleep requirements."

Speaking of which, the controversy over sleep health has never stopped. The traditional school of clinical sleep medicine has always insisted on "circadian rhythm matching first." The core basis is that the peak secretion of melatonin and growth hormone in the human body is indeed concentrated between 11 o'clock at night and 3 o'clock in the morning. The efficiency of entering deep sleep during this period is 2-3 times that of the day. People who have a long-term schedule that is completely reversed have a 12% higher risk of metabolic diseases than those who have a regular schedule. This conclusion is supported by clinical tracking data of the past 20 years, and there is no doubt about it.

However, in recent years, more and more studies have supported the view of "individual rhythm priority": 15%-20% of people in the population are born with a "delayed sleep phase", which is often said to be natural night owls. Forcing yourself to go to bed at 10 o'clock will trigger sleep phase disorders. I previously read a review in the 2023 "Sleep Medicine Review" As can be seen from the above, as long as you can ensure a complete sleep cycle - that is, a "non-rapid eye movement + rapid eye movement" sleep cycle of about 90 minutes, you can sleep for 4 to 6 cycles, and your schedule is fixed for a long time. Even if you go to bed at 2 a.m. and get up at 10 a.m. every day, there will be no significant difference in cognitive ability and metabolic level with people who go to bed early and get up early.

Talking about the practice of ordinary people, there is really no need to take sides. In the past two years, I have gone through more pitfalls than anyone else in order to adjust my sleep: I heard people say that drinking red wine before going to bed helps me sleep. After drinking it for less than half a month, I lay down faster, but I always wake up two or three times in the middle of the night. Later I learned that alcohol will directly destroy the continuity of deep sleep. It is equivalent to your mobile phone looking full of electricity, but in fact it is all empty.； I also bought hundreds of white noise machines and turned them on all night every day. As a result, my ears always felt buzzing when I woke up. After doing sleep monitoring, I found that the continuous background sound will keep the auditory nerve in a low-activity state, and the duration of deep sleep will be reduced by 20%.

If you are a 9-to-5 office worker, you really can’t change the habit of checking your phone before going to bed. There is no need to force yourself to put it down and set the screen to the darkest night mode. Don’t watch short videos of more than ten seconds each. Watch long articles or slow-paced documentaries, which will make you more likely to fall asleep.； If you are a night owl by nature and have to rush to work early in the morning, don't be tempted to move your work schedule forward by two or three hours. Go to bed 15 minutes earlier every day, and you can move half an hour in two weeks. Don't sleep in for more than an hour on weekends, otherwise your biological clock, which you have finally adjusted, will snap back to its original shape. If you have been lying in bed tossing and turning for half an hour and still haven't fallen asleep, don't just lie down and count sheep. Get up and sit for a while to read some boring professional books. When you feel sleepy, go back to lie down. The harder you lie down, the more anxious you will be, and the more you can't fall asleep.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that it’s okay to stay up late. If you feel heavy all over when you wake up for a week in a row, and you can’t doze off even while sitting during the day, you should see a doctor when it’s time. Don’t take melatonin blindly. Long-term high-dose supplementation will inhibit your own melatonin secretion, which will be more troublesome.

In fact, the original intention of holding a Sleep Health Day was not to set a new KPI for everyone, but to start implementing a perfect routine today. To be honest, after a busy day, being able to take off everything and lie down in bed without setting an alarm clock, wake up naturally, stretch and feel relaxed, isn’t this the best form of sleep health? Right.