The overall sleep quality of residents is poor, nearly 1/3 of the population does not sleep for a long time, 22% of the population has poor sleep quality, it is difficult for the post-00s to fall asleep, and the post-70s wake up frequently at night...... On March 16, at the 2024 World Sleep Day China Annual Theme Conference, the "2024 Chinese Residents' Sleep Health White Paper" revealed the above phenomenon. So, how long is the best sleep in a day? In fact, it varies from person to person.
Different ages
The amount of sleep required varies from day to day
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine organized a panel of sleep experts, who reviewed hundreds of high-quality studies on sleep duration and health issues, and through several rounds of voting and discussion, finally drew a range of sleep needs for different age groups.
Specifically, infants and young children need the most sleep time, and as they get older, the amount of sleep they need decreases, and it is not until after the age of 18 that the change slowly stabilizes. Rather than static, sleep needs can vary at different ages. The sleep needs of the age group under 3 months vary greatly, ranging from 11 hours to 19 hours, and it is not recommended for mothers to go to the community to compare sleep time with other children and then come back to toss the baby.
Adult sleep duration
Do you want to reach more than 7 hours a day?
Vary. Don't compare your sleep time with the past. Don't compare your sleep time with others. More than 7 hours of sleep a day is what most adults need, and most of it is a statistically significant "average."
On the sleep time statistics chart, in addition to the middle 7 hours, there are also parts of the data that are distributed at both ends. On the far left is the "Short Sleeper" and on the far right is the "Long Sleeper".
A "short sleeper" is one who sleeps for 6 or 5 hours without affecting his daytime state, i.e. he does not need to nap or coffee during the day, and he or she works like any other person. Studies have found that short sleepers are born with certain genetic mutations. There are very few people who are "gifted", and the number is about 1%~3%.
"Long sleepers" naturally need to sleep for a long time, and for adults, they often need to sleep for 9 hours or even more than 10 hours to ensure their mental state during the day, accounting for about 2% of the total. Most of the time, this sleep pattern starts in childhood and continues into adulthood. Some studies suggest that this sleep pattern is genetically involved. Long sleepers are the most likely group of people to "not sleep enough", and they often doze off during the day, which affects their learning and productivity. But if it's on the holidays, as long as they get enough time for their body to need, their performance will return to very good shape.
From "short sleepers", to "7~9 hour averages" in the middle, and then to "long sleepers", these sleep data form a normal continuous "time spectrum". The so-called "adults need 8 hours of sleep" is just a reference answer, and as an individual, it is not advisable to label yourself as "sleep deprived" or "sleep too much" based on a single number. How much sleep you need can be different from others.
How to judge yourself
How much sleep do I need per day?
See how you perform when you wake up. If you wake up and are able to stay awake most of the time, maintain good enough concentration, and do not affect your work and life, then you can assume that you can sleep well. On the other hand, if you wake up drowsy and have a loss of concentration, it means that you haven't slept well enough – or not enough time, or poor quality, or both.
You can refer to the "mean" for adults – 7 hours. If you don't have 7 hours, try to find out where the time went. If it's 7 hours, look for other "sleep resistances" that are interfering with your sleep quality. You can refer to the "list of questions" provided by the American Sleep Foundation:
1
Does 7 hours of sleep make you feel productive and healthy? Or, have you noticed that you need more sleep to feel better during the day?
2
Do you often feel sleepy during your daily work?
3
Will you rely on caffeine to get through the day?
4
Do you tend to sleep more on holidays that don't require work?
Through the above 4 questions, you will get a general idea of whether the existing sleep time is enough.
What to do if you don't get enough sleep?
For "long sleepers", try to let yourself sleep as much as possible without delaying work. Here are 3 steps to follow:
Draw a pie
The "cake" here is to review your "time spent", sort out your activities before going to bed at night, and calculate how much time each occupies. Secondly, sort out the items that are not so important, try to delete them or compress the time, you can change a little bit at a time.
仪式
Create a bedtime ritual that relaxes you. Take a bath, look at your phone, play games, etc., and stay away from the screen about half an hour before bedtime. The advantage of this is that it makes it easier for the brain to be freed from stressful daytime work and internet information, which is conducive to falling asleep.
Catch up on sleep
There will always be all sorts of things that are depriving you and me of night's sleep. If you really haven't slept enough at night, you can take a catch-up sleep to make yourself "back to some blood". However, it takes some skill to make up for sleep, and you can't make up too hard at one time, otherwise, it is easy to affect the sleep of the night and disrupt the overall sleep rhythm.
The most recommended way to catch up on sleep is 4 words: installments. If you don't get enough sleep at night on weekdays, take a 20-minute nap during the noon hours during the day. In case of holidays, sleep more in the morning, no more than 1 hour after getting up, you can take a nap for another 20 minutes at noon, and arrange yourself to sleep early at night when you are tired.
summary
In fact, there is no need to worry about short-term sleep deprivation, just look at it as a Buddhist system.
1
Most adults need around 7 hours of sleep, but that's not the standard answer, and as an individual, you can't measure whether you're sleeping well based on that number alone.
2
Whether you get enough sleep depends on the state of the day after waking up. If you are not in a good state, go back and see if you have 7 hours of sleep for most people, if not, it is a sign that other factors are depriving you of sleep. If you get enough sleep, then you need to look for other sleep resistances that are affecting your sleep quality.
3
If you're planning to get a little more sleep, you can do it in 3 steps: pie painting, rituals, and catch-up sleep.
Editor: Li Ling
Source: Popular Science China
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