The definition of sleep health

Sleep health refers to a dynamic state in which sleep duration, sleep quality, and sleep rhythm match individual physiological needs and life scenarios without negatively affecting normal daytime functions and long-term physical and mental status. There is no universal unified quantitative standard.

To be honest, in the five years I have been doing sleep intervention, I have seen too many people use the online "sleep health standards" to judge themselves as "unqualified". I once had a visitor who was an Internet operator. He went to bed at 1 a.m. and woke up at 7 a.m. for three consecutive years, and slept a full day every day. 6 hours, and I could hold meetings for 4 hours during the day without being distracted. All the indicators in the physical examination were normal. But because I saw a post about "not sleeping enough for 8 hours will lead to premature aging", I was so anxious that I forced myself to go to bed at 11 o'clock and lie down until 1 o'clock before I could fall asleep. Instead, I suddenly had difficulty falling asleep.

As for the criteria for determining sleep health, there are actually two voices in the academic community. The traditional school of public health research prefers the group mean standard, which is the recommended amount of 7-9 hours per day for people aged 18-64 given by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. This standard is based on a large sample of health data. There is nothing wrong with using it for public science. However, it is easy to be "acclimated" to individuals. The individual adaptation school that has emerged in recent years pays more attention to the differentiated needs of individuals. For example, less than 1% of the population is born with short sleepers and carries a specific DEC2 gene mutation. They only need 4-6 hours of sleep a day to fully restore their energy. There are also a small number of long sleepers who need more than 10 hours of sleep a day to maintain a normal state. If their sleep duration is forcibly adjusted to the 7-9 hour range, they will suffer from problems such as reduced concentration and irritable mood, which will harm their health.

Many people tend to equate sleep health with "sleeping long enough". In fact, sleeping for a long time is not as stable as sleeping for a long time. I once met a primary school teacher who went to bed at 10 p.m. and woke up at 7 a.m. every day, and actually slept for 9 hours. However, he woke up three or four times a night, either because of the late-night messages from the parents of the students, or suddenly woke up when he suddenly remembered that he had to check the lesson plan the next day. After waking up, he had to scroll through his mobile phone for half an hour before he could fall back asleep.

There is another point that people often make mistakes: staying up late does not necessarily harm sleep, but staying up randomly does. I have a friend who worked as an emergency nurse in a tertiary hospital. She worked the night shift for six years. She got off work at 8 a.m. every day. She had breakfast at home and went to bed at 9:30 p.m., and got up to eat and go to work at 5:30 p.m. She never woke up in the middle of her sleep. There was nothing wrong with her annual physical examination. On the contrary, she was the kind of person who stayed up until 3 a.m. and started at 12 a.m. the next day, and then forced herself to go to bed at 10 a.m. and then wake up at 6 a.m. the day after tomorrow. Her sleep rhythm jumped back and forth, and she would have trouble falling asleep and light sleep within half a year.

Of course, this does not mean that everyone does not need to refer to any standards. If you have maintained a fixed sleep habit for a long time, and recently you suddenly wake up after sleeping for 4 hours for more than two weeks in a row, or you still feel tired after sleeping for 12 hours, then it is not an "individual difference". There is a high probability that there is a physical or emotional problem, and it is best to get a check-up in time.

To put it bluntly, sleep health is similar to finding shoes that fit your feet. If you wear a size that is comfortable for others, your feet may be scratched. Don’t apply other people’s standards to your own. You can fall asleep quickly when you lie down, and feel relaxed when you wake up. You can concentrate on your work during the day, and you won't be irritated and distracted at every turn. This is already a very healthy sleep state. There is really no need to worry about those illusory 8 hours.