Sleep health maintenance and management guide pdf

90% of non-pathological sleep problems do not need to rely on drugs or complex intervention. They can be effectively improved through the three-layer logic of "first detecting organic lesions, then anchoring biological rhythms, and finally adapting to personal living habits." There is no unified sleep standard that applies to everyone.

Let me tell you a real case that I came across last year: Xiao Zhang, who works as an Internet operator, stayed up for 3 years. For the past six months, he could not fall asleep after lying in bed and turning over for 2 hours. He bought thousands of yuan of sleep-aid tea and sleep devices, but they were useless. Finally, he went to the hospital for a checkup and found out that he had mild reflux esophagitis. When he lay down, his stomach acid burned his esophagus and he couldn't sleep. After taking acid-suppressing medicine for 2 weeks, he fell asleep normally. This is also the first key point I want to talk about: Don’t blame yourself for being “stressed” or having a disordered work schedule. If you have difficulty falling asleep, dreaming and waking up easily for more than 2 weeks in a row, go to a sleep department or general practitioner for a basic checkup first. Rhinitis, hyperthyroidism, vitamin D deficiency, chronic pain and other seemingly unrelated minor problems may be the culprits that steal your sleep. Random sleep supplement products are simply a waste of money.

Excluding organic problems, many people's first reaction is to change their work and rest schedules, and they are always confused about "whether they must go to bed before 11 o'clock" and "whether they will die suddenly if they don't sleep for less than 8 hours." In fact, there have always been different views in this academic field: the American Academy of Sleep Medicine's updated guidelines in 2023 clearly divide the population into three categories: morning type, intermediate type, and evening type. People who are born "night owls" are also evening types. The melatonin secretion time itself is 2-3 hours later than ordinary people. If you force yourself to lie down at 11 o'clock, you will develop sleep anxiety because you cannot sleep, and you will become more energetic the longer you lie down. I have a friend who is a freelance illustrator and is a typical evening person. In order to meet the "healthy schedule", he changed his schedule for half a month and kept his eyes open until 3 o'clock every day. Later, he simply stopped sleeping at 2 o'clock and went to bed at 10 o'clock. For three consecutive years, his physical examination indicators have been normal, and his energy for drawing during the day is better than before. But one thing to mention is that no matter whether you choose to go to bed early or go to bed late, it is best to get up at a fixed time. On weekends, you should wake up at most 1 hour later than usual. Otherwise, it will be like your mobile phone randomly updating the system every week. It will take at least 3-5 days to adjust the biological clock after it is messed up. You are really asking for it when you are so sleepy that you can't open your eyes during the Monday morning rush hour.

After talking about work and rest, there is another point that many people tend to get into trouble with: Do sleeping habits have to follow online standards? Things like "you can't touch your mobile phone before going to bed", "you can't have a little light in the bedroom" and "you can't sleep listening to sounds" are actually really unnecessary. Traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT-I) does recommend avoiding blue light one hour before going to bed and keeping the bedroom dark and quiet. However, when we did clinical intervention, we found that at least 30% of people need low light or background sound to fall asleep. For example, all people who grew up with their parents sleeping with the TV on when they were young, A dark environment can cause inexplicable panic, and some people have to listen to white noise to block the sound of the water pipes downstairs. At this time, forcibly changing habits will increase the psychological burden. As long as you don't have a headache and feel tired when you wake up the next day, you can turn on a night light or listen to a talk show to fall asleep. There is no need to feel guilty. If you really lie down for 20 minutes and are still awake enough to recite the multiplication table, don’t stay up. Get up, go to the living room, turn on a dark light, and read two prose collections with no plot, and then go back to the bedroom when you feel sleepy. I have tried this technique myself and hundreds of consulting users, and the effectiveness is as high as 70%.

Finally, let’s talk about the sleep-aid products that everyone is most concerned about. This area has always been quite controversial: Evidence-based medicine has concluded that melatonin only has a clear effect on sleep phase shifts caused by jet lag and shift work. Ordinary people with insomnia may suppress their own melatonin secretion if they take it for a long time (more than 3 months). There are also studies showing that it may affect ovulation in women. It is not recommended to buy and take it by yourself.； Ingredients such as jujube kernels and lilies in the traditional Chinese medicine system do have a regulating effect on dreaminess and easy awakening caused by deficiency of the heart and spleen, but they must be symptomatic, and not everyone will be effective if they eat them. Don't believe those internet celebrity sleep-aid gummies that claim "you can fall asleep in 10 minutes after eating them." I've seen several users feel drowsy the next day after eating them. After taking them for testing, they found out that they contain banned stabilizing ingredients. They're totally deceptive.

In the past 3 years of doing sleep intervention, I have seen too many people who are extremely anxious due to the standards of "must sleep for 8 hours" and "must go to bed before 11 o'clock". Originally they only stayed up late once in a while, but ended up worrying about not getting enough sleep every day, and actually fell into a vicious cycle of insomnia. In fact, sleeping is a human instinct. As long as you have no organic problems, have a regular schedule, and feel comfortable, it will be fine. If something really goes wrong, go to a doctor first, and don’t mess around with fancy folk remedies. After all, the core of a good night’s sleep is not to take sleep seriously.

(Note: The content of this guideline is compiled based on 3 years of clinical sleep intervention experience, the 2023 version of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Sleep Guidelines, and the domestic consensus on sleep conditioning of traditional Chinese medicine. All recommendations are evidence-based and can be flexibly adjusted according to individual circumstances)