Sleep health education home volunteer activity content

Taking families registered in the community as a unit, volunteers with basic training in sleep medicine will come to their homes one-on-one to complete four core services: individualized sleep status assessment, adaptive science popularization Q&A, practical behavioral intervention guidance, and long-term follow-up for special groups. The core goal is to eliminate the "universal bias" of public sleep science popularization, put professional knowledge into the actual work and rest scenarios of each family, and solve the common pain point of "people can understand the popular science, but cannot use it themselves".

Last month, I followed the volunteer team of the community health service center in my jurisdiction and visited nearly 20 households. From elderly people living alone to mothers who have just finished their maternity leave, to Internet tenants who stay up late every day, the actual implementation content cannot be explained clearly in a list, and must be adjusted at any time according to the situation of each household.

The first person I visited was the 62-year-old Uncle Li's house. He was holding half a box of "sleep aid tea" that he bought for more than 300 yuan. He said that he could only sleep 5 hours a day and must be suffering from severe insomnia. We first sat him down and talked about his schedule for half an hour: he would lie down at 10 o'clock every day, go for a walk in the park after waking up around 3 o'clock, sit there and play mahjong all afternoon without feeling sleepy, and he could still squint for 20 minutes at noon. We first calculated the total sleep duration for him, and then talked about the two current consensuses in the academic community: One school of research believes that as long as an individual does not feel obvious fatigue during the day, there is no need to deliberately pursue the "8 hours of standard sleep", and people over 60 years old can fully meet the standard of 5-7 hours of sleep per day; there are also large sample follow-up data showing that long-term sleep duration of less than 6 hours will slightly increase the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. The last suggestion I gave is also very practical: If you don’t feel uncomfortable when you wake up, you don’t have to lie down until dawn, and you don’t have to have the psychological burden of “I have insomnia.” If you are worried about the risk, you can try to push back the time to fall asleep by half an hour, and see if you can sleep until 4 o’clock before getting up again. Incidentally, we also mentioned his habit of drinking two taels of white wine a day to help him sleep - we did not directly deny the folk saying that "drinking helps sleep", but told him the clinical observation: alcohol can indeed shorten the time to fall asleep, but it will inhibit deep sleep. Many people drink alcohol all night and are still tired the next day, because they stay in the light sleep stage all night and have not entered the body repair period. If you drink alcohol and feel refreshed the next day, you don't have to quit completely. If you wake up with a headache and fatigue, stop immediately.

Oh, yes, the most convenient thing about visiting is that everyone is willing to tell the truth. Before I set up a science stall in the community square, many people were embarrassed to talk about privacy issues, so I just sat on the sofa at home and drank tea. For example, 47-year-old Sister Zhang was embarrassed to tell others that she kept waking up in the middle of the night because of menopausal night sweats. We would not say such empty words as "you need to adjust your mood", but directly changed her life details: don't drink too much water one hour before going to bed, and adjust the bedroom temperature to The temperature was 22-24 degrees. She changed into sweat-absorbent cotton sheets. When she woke up, she did not touch her mobile phone. She closed her eyes and did abdominal breathing for 3 minutes. She was also taught the rhythm of breathing on site. Before leaving, she left a small handbook with comics printed on it. It has the contact WeChat of our volunteer team. If you have any questions, you can ask her at any time.

Young people are more flexible when it comes to problems. For example, Xiao Wu, a 28-year-old operation worker who lives in an old community, goes to bed at 2 a.m. and wakes up at 10 a.m. every day. He confidently says that he has enough sleep for 8 hours and there is nothing wrong with him. We will not come up and preach that "staying up late is harmful to health", but give him two research conclusions: Indeed, a small sample study shows that as long as the sleep rhythm is completely fixed, even if the day and night are reversed, the impact on health is not significant; but a larger clinical follow-up found that people who have long-term schedules that violate the natural light rhythm are three times more likely to have melatonin secretion disorders than people with normal schedules, and the risk of abnormal glucose metabolism is also 27% higher. The last suggestion I gave him also took into account the nature of his work: If you really can’t adjust your schedule, make the bedroom blinds as thick as possible. Don’t let natural light in in the morning. Try to simulate a dark night environment to stabilize your rhythm. Don’t go to bed at 2 o’clock today and go to bed at 10 o’clock tomorrow, and then get up at 8 o’clock on the weekend to climb mountains on a whim. Disruption of rhythm is the most harmful to the body. There are also many people who ask whether melatonin can be taken. We never say "can" or "can't". We only clarify the boundaries: short-term consumption, such as taking it for 1-2 weeks when suffering from jet lag, is fine. Long-term high-dose consumption may suppress one's own melatonin secretion and worsen insomnia. If you want to take it, consult a doctor first to ask about the dosage. Don't blindly buy unknown imported products. It is too common that the dosage exceeds the national standard several times.

We will also do long-term follow-up for special groups. For example, the 80-year-old Grandma Wang who lives alone has early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Her work and rest are completely reversed. She sleeps during the day and sits and calls for help at night. We will visit her once a week and accompany her around the community for half an hour in the afternoon, dragging her with her. Chatting with other elderly people, trying to reduce her sleep time during the day and slowly adjusting her rhythm; there are also mothers who have just given birth, most of whom have problems with sleep fragmentation. We will ask about the situation on WeChat every half a month and teach her and her family to rest at different times and not to stay up all night alone.

To be honest, I used to think that door-to-door evangelism was just about handing over printed materials. After visiting so many households, I realized that the most useful thing is never the standardized provisions. It is actually squatting down to see if there is a night light in the bedroom and whether the pillow height is appropriate, listening to the specific scenarios when they say they cannot sleep well, and then kneading professional things into small methods that they can use. After all, there is no standard answer to the question of sleep. Some people are suitable for going to bed early and getting up early, while others are suitable for going to bed late and getting up late. We are not volunteering to change everyone to a uniform schedule. As long as they wake up energetic the next day and feel no discomfort, that is a good sleep.