Normally, adults should sleep enough for 6 to 8 hours a night. However, as the pace of life accelerates, more and more people experience sleep deprivation, so much so that they sleep less than 6 hours a day.
What happens if I don't get enough 6 hours of sleep for three consecutive days?
The Behavioral Medicine Yearbook has published a study published by a research team at the University of South Florida in the United States, and researchers have surveyed 1958 healthy and well-educated middle-aged people for 8 days to record their sleep quality.
These people are required to provide daily sleep for 8 consecutive days, recording the mental and physical behavior of these 8 days. Sleeping less than 6 hours was judged to be sleep-deprived, with about 42 percent of them sleeping at least one night and sleeping 1.5 hours less than usual.
1958 participants were asked to report physical symptoms and severity, including gastrointestinal symptoms, pain, and upper respiratory tract-related symptoms. The results showed that the sleep-deprived participants experienced bad emotions such as loneliness, nervousness, anger, and other symptoms, including diarrhea, pain, and runny nose.
The more consecutive days of sleep deprivation, the worsening of mental and physical problems, the severity of these symptoms peaks. Therefore, sleeping less than 6 hours for three consecutive days can affect physical and mental health.
Is your sleep up to standard?
Different age groups sleep differently each day.
- Preschoolers should sleep enough 10 to 13 hours a night.
- Children 6 to 13 years old should sleep enough for 9 to 11 hours.
- Adolescents aged 14 to 17 should sleep enough for 8 to 10 hours.
- People aged 18 to 64 should sleep enough for 7 to 9 hours.
- Seniors over the age of 65 should sleep enough 7 to 8 hours a day.
It is worth noting that the standard of sleep time does not mean that the quality of sleep is good. Judging the quality of sleep by their own symptoms, waking up the next day refreshed, energetic, clear thinking, no feeling of drowsiness, which indicates that the quality of sleep is good.
How to improve the quality of sleep?
1. Provide a quiet sleeping environment
Provide a quiet, comfortable, dark sleeping environment, room temperature of about 18 ~ 23 ° C, relative humidity of 40% ~ 50%; the room to install a better shade of the curtain, turn off all the lights or wear eye masks and earplugs, to avoid being affected by external factors.
2. Adjust your diet
Do not eat any food for 3 hours before going to bed, if hunger is unbearable, you may wish to drink a cup of milk or millet porridge. From 15 o'clock, do not drink alcoholic and caffeinated drinks, so as not to overexcite the central nervous system and affect sleep.
3. Moderate activity during the day
There should be more than one hour of outdoor activity time during the day, which can stimulate melatonin secretion and improve the quality of sleep at night. If you are busy at work, you may wish to go for a walk in the forest, garden or suburbs during work or holidays, and exercise is advisable to sweat a little.
Tips
Adults can sleep 7 to 9 hours a day, and sleeping too short or too long can lead to sleep disturbances and increase the risk of heart disease. Cultivate the good habit of falling asleep on time and getting up on time, ensure that you fall asleep before 23:00, and wake up at 6:00 to 7:00 in the morning; you can't play electronic products before going to bed, and you can't do heavy mental work. Choose a mattress and pillow with moderate softness and hardness, and the height of the pillow is about 10 cm. It is worth noting that people with sleep disorders try not to take a lunch break at noon.
Family doctor online special article, unauthorized reproduction