“Use the most expensive eye cream to stay up late at night.” This sentence describes the sleep conditions of many Chinese people.
According to the “2022 Chinese National Healthy Sleep White Paper” jointly released by the China Sleep Research Association and other organizations, 44% of young people aged 19-25 stay up until after midnight, Poor sleep has gradually become a common pain point for young people.
How many people have experienced this situation?
When I woke up in pain every day, I cried out in my heart, “I must go to bed early tonight!!”
As a result, when I lay in bed at night, all kinds of “really fragrant”:
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“I’ll sleep when I finish this video”
“I’ll sleep in seconds after playing this game”
In the end, when I get back to my senses, It’s already one or two in the morning.
Sleep is closely related to human health and longevity. It is important to know how to sleep and how long to sleep.
First, you may be fooled by the “8-hour sleep theory”
Published by the World Health Organization of Approximately 27% of the world’s population suffer from sleep disturbances. Long-term lack of sleep can damage blood vessels and brain health, affect normal life, and easily cause or aggravate cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and other diseases.
In the past, many experts have been advocating the “8-hour sleep theory”, that it is healthy to sleep 8 hours a night, and this theory has also been widely recognized by people.
So how many hours of sleep do you need to sleep every night for your health? In response to this question, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2021 gave the answer.
Researchers at the National Cancer Center in Japan selected 322,721 people from Japan, China, Singapore and South Korea, with an average age of 54.5 55.3% (178,542 people) were women.
Participants were divided into 6 groups based on sleep time per day, 5 hours or less, 6 hours, 7 hours, 8 hours, 9 hours, 10 hours or more. long. During the follow-up period, there were 19,419 deaths in men and 13,768 deaths in women.
The results found that the number of women who sleep for 7 hours is the largest, accounting for 33.8%, while the number of men who sleep for 8 hours is the largest, accounting for 35.1%. Seven hours of sleep was the lowest for all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease mortality, and other-cause mortality in both men and women.
Simply put, people who slept 7 hours a day had the lowest risk of death from all causes, while sleep too little (<5 hours) or too much ( >10 hours), the risk of death was significantly increased.
Sleep experts point out that the amount of sleep varies for different groups of people: 9 hours of sleep a day is best for teenagers, and about 7-8 hours for adults aged 18-64, while the elderly over 65 years old need to sleep about 6.5-7.5 hours.
When is the healthiest time to sleep?
A prospective cohort study published in the European Heart Journal by a research team from the University of Exeter, UK, found that the prime time to fall asleep is between 10-11 o’clock< /strong>, because falling asleep during this time period was associated with the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease.
Second, people sleep three times, and their lives are thinner than paper!
In addition to the length of sleep that affects health, some bad sleep habits also endanger human health.
1. Sleep in late
A cohort study published in the American Journal of Cardiology by a research team from Keele University in the United Kingdom showed that excessive sleep duration increased cardiovascular morbidity and all-cause mortality.
Researchers reviewed 74 cohort studies, including 3,340,684 participants, and found that sleep duration was associated with cardiovascular disease risk and risk of all-cause mortality in a J-shaped curve, People who slept more than 8 hours had a higher risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality.
Among them, 9 hours of sleep per night was associated with a 14% increased risk of all-cause mortality; 10 hours of sleep was associated with a 30% increased risk of all-cause mortality; 11 hours of sleep was associated with a 47% increased risk of all-cause mortality %.
2. Upside down sleep
Tianjin University Teda Hospital Deputy Chief Physician Zhao Wei said that sleep time Early, late or reversed are all circadian rhythm disorders.
Common manifestations are difficulty in falling asleep, difficulty in maintaining sleep and increasing daytime sleep time, easy to induce cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, metabolic, cognitive and emotional diseases, leading to study, work and other functions are impaired.
3. Emotional Sense
A study in the Journal of Neuroscience shows that falling asleep with an angry mood exacerbates negative emotions, Because sleep strengthens memory, especially emotional memory.
So, don’t go to bed immediately when you are angry, otherwise the angry mood will recover more slowly.
Third, “sleep on your back”, is it a sign of good sleep quality?
Most of the sleep disorders are insomnia and difficulty falling asleep. Some people lie in bed and fall asleep within five minutes. Does it mean that the quality of sleep is high?
Introduced by Li Taoping, Director of the Respiratory and Sleep Center of Nanfang Hospital, most people who fall asleep quickly may be at risk of developing sleep apnea syndrome (SAS).
If the time from lying in bed to falling asleep is less than 5 minutes, sleep latency is too short, indicating that the person is in a state of drowsiness and lethargy, which is sleep apnea One of the common symptoms of syndrome (SAS). So, it doesn’t mean that falling asleep quickly means good sleep quality.
What should I do to improve sleep quality?
1. Avoid eating or exercising 2-3 hours before going to bed
Eating too much dinner or eating before going to bed will lead to increased gastric acid secretion , increasing the burden on the stomach. And exercise will make the brain in a state of excitement, which in turn affects the quality of sleep.
2, take a shower or foot bath 1-2 hours before bedtime
1 before bedtime – 2 hours of bathing can raise body temperature and relax muscles. When it is time to sleep, body temperature just drops, which can help you fall asleep. Before going to bed, soaking your feet with warm water at 40℃-42℃ can promote blood circulation, accelerate metabolism, and help improve sleep quality.
3. Choose comfortable bedding
Beds made of synthetic satin, polyester and other materials cannot discharge moisture, which will make people sleepier the hotter. It is recommended that products should be choose sweat-wicking and breathable materials such as pure cotton and wool fabrics.
If you are allergic to dust or mold, it is recommended to use anti-allergen mattresses and bed covers, and wash them frequently.
4. Keep the sleeping environment dark
Before going to bed and during sleep, if exposed to light, it will inhibit the secretion of melatonin, This in turn affects sleep quality.
You can install blackout curtains if there is light leakage from the windows of the rest space; if complete blackout is not possible, you can also wear a blackout eye mask while sleeping.
Sleep plays an important role in human health. Sleeping too long or too short can harm your health. In addition to sleep time, pay attention to sleep time, sleep habits, and sleep quality.
References:
[1]Svensson, T., Saito, E., Svensson, A. K., et al. (2021). Association of sleep duration with all-and major -cause mortality among adults in Japan, China, Singapore, and Korea. JAMA network open, 4(9), e2122837-e2122837.
[2]”A person sleeps three times and his life is thinner than paper”? What are the three senses? These kinds of abnormalities may be because the body is “calling for help”… Popular Science China, 2022-04-06
[3] Take 1 minute to measure your sleep quality, 12 ways to save various “sleepless” Good”. Life Times, 2019-05-29