As the saying goes, “It is better to eat than dumplings, and it is better to be comfortable than to be upside down.” For industrious and honest Chinese, it is only when they can lie down and sleep at night after a hard day’s work that people are comfortable. We seldom question why people want to sleep. We think it is the most natural thing like sunrise, sunset, winter and spring.
How long will it take to sleep enough? Different people have different answers. Most people sleep 7.5-8 hours a night, but others can only sleep 3 hours a night without the consequences of what.
Do you have insomnia?
Almost all of us have had difficulty falling asleep at certain moments-this condition is called insomnia. Insomnia may occur in specific situations. For example, a big test takes place immediately, after a relationship breaks down or before you are about to lose your job. But sometimes there is no obvious reason for insomnia. Some people just have difficulty falling asleep or wake up frequently at night after falling asleep. About one in three people has experienced some degree of insomnia at some point in their lives.
Sometimes, when we wake up in the morning, We will feel ready to go, and then we will feel [slept really well last night]. But sometimes, when we wake up in the morning, we will feel different. Sometimes we have difficulty waking up, have pressed the alarm clock many times, and finally have to struggle to get up. These experiences have prompted us to wonder how to get a full sleep.
Unfortunately, at present we only know some factors that make up good sleep, because the feeling of sleep quality is subjective. Although insomniacs can be identified by polysomnography (PSG), other people who think they sleep poorly have no obvious characteristics in the records for reference.
What kind of insomnia are you?
Different types of insomnia also show different sleep states.
1. Insomnia with difficulty falling asleep
Some people lie in bed, eager to fall asleep, but always awake. Under normal circumstances, if a person still cannot fall asleep for more than 30 minutes, we call it Sleep Onset Insomnia.
2. Sleep maintenance insomnia
Some people cannot maintain sleep all night, and there will be several awakening times at night, and the awakening time will be relatively long. When a person awakens for more than 30 minutes at night, or awakens more than 5 times at night, it is usually called Sleep Maintenance Insomnia.
3. Early awakening insomnia
Some people do not have difficulty falling asleep and the sleep continuity is maintained well, but the sleep time is not long enough and they always wake up earlier than expected. The total sleep time is less than 6.5 hours. This situation is called Early Arousal Insomnia.
4. Shallow sleep type insomnia
Sometimes, there is a fourth type of insomnia. The problem with this type of insomnia is not the length of sleep, but the quality of sleep. If someone is in the first phase of sleep 12% of the time, and the age group is 20-30, and their slow wave sleep is less than 5%, or 30-40 years old, their slow wave sleep is less than 3%, it is called Light Sleep Insomnia.
For centuries, People have always believed that sleep is a passive process. It seems that many people still agree with this view. In order to get into sleep, We must relax our brains and bodies and reduce their activity and arousal. Because when our brains are active, we cannot sleep. We can only sleep in a natural state. There are also many factors that will interfere with sleep, such as noise, lights, body discomfort and pain, and various thoughts.
Why do you lose sleep?
1. Transient insomnia
All of us have had a bad night or two, followed by a day or two of exhaustion. Too much stress, too much excitement, environmental changes and many other reasons can lead to temporary insomnia. However, sleep will soon return to normal and daytime conditions will return to normal. This temporary insomnia usually requires no treatment.
2. Short-term insomnia
Short-term insomnia refers to insomnia lasting for several days to several weeks. Usually, the causes of short-term insomnia include: continuous pressure of schooling, work and family life, or sudden death of relatives and friends and other emergencies. This kind of insomnia, generally do a good job of pressure or loss adjustment, can return to a normal sleep state; Sometimes intervention treatment may be needed to help restore sleep.
3. Long-term insomnia
If sleep quality is poor, Waking up at night for more than three weeks is a long-term insomnia. In fact, many patients with long-term insomnia may suffer from insomnia symptoms for months or even years. Such patients need professional treatment. The causes of long-term insomnia can be roughly divided into four categories: physical diseases, psychological factors, lifestyle and subjective insomnia.
(1) Physical IllnessSome long-term diseases can lead to long-term insomnia due to pain and discomfort.
(2) Psychological factorsNearly half of the chronic insomnia patients who seek medical treatment clinically are caused by psychological factors. Mild and severe psychological problems may affect sleep.
Continuous life or work stress, It may cause sleep problems. When we feel nervous and preoccupied, It is difficult to relax and fall asleep. Stress in the body increases the content of activated neurotransmitters norepinephrine, epinephrine and cortisol. These neurotransmitters are usually in a calm state at night. If we feel anxious, depressed or stressed, the thought of the problems we will face the next day will put us in a state of excitement and tension.
Patients with fear and anxiety problems suffer from difficulty in falling asleep and unsustainable sleep. Depression is the most common psychological factor causing long-term insomnia. Depressed patients may have difficulty falling asleep, but they are more likely to suffer from frequent awakening and early awakening. Frequent awakening will interfere with the duration of sleep, and early awakening will prevent them from falling asleep again.
(3) Lifestyle: About 1/4 of the people suffering from long-term insomnia are caused by their behavior patterns. Some of these people belong to psychological and physiological insomnia, also known as learned insomnia.
1) Acquired insomnia
For most of us, bedrooms, beds and bedding have become hints of sleep, and we have learned that when these hints appear, we will fall asleep quickly. But for insomnia patients, the situation is different.
In our life, There may have been a short period of time, Because of environmental or emotional problems, Causing difficulty in falling asleep. For most people, This situation is only temporary, and sleep will soon return to normal. However, some sensitive people subconsciously associate bedroom hints with sleeplessness, forming negative expectations of their bedroom, which becomes an external conditional wake-up factor, and they will not be able to sleep all night long as they are in their bedroom.
Similarly, behaviors such as turning off lights and brushing teeth can also form factors that make it difficult to fall asleep. For learned insomnia patients with external conditioned wake-up factors, they can get better sleep when they leave their regular sleep environment.
There are also some sensitive people who may be overly concerned about their health and sleep by their families when they are young. Creating a susceptible factor, Making them more sensitive to daily life events, Excessive attention to sleep, And can’t fall asleep. The closer the sleep time is, the more anxious it is, and when you can’t sleep, you still try your best to make yourself fall asleep. This not only can’t fall asleep, but also increases the degree of excitement and anxiety of the body. The brain is awakened and eventually forms a vicious circle. The more you want to fall asleep, the more excited you are, so that it is more difficult to fall asleep and seriously damages your ability to fall asleep.
Insomnia caused by sleep environment interference, job changes, physical pain and depression can also become the promoting factors of learned sleep obstruction. Even after these external and internal causes of insomnia have been removed for a long time, psychological and physiological insomnia may still exist.
2) Insomnia caused by drugs or substances
In life-style insomnia, Another category is caused by drug or substance abuse. Alcohol is a common substance causing insomnia. Because alcohol does make people feel drowsy, As a result, many people use alcohol to treat insomnia themselves. Unfortunately, after the body consumes alcohol, it will reduce the REM sleep time during sleep, and the final result is to interfere with sleep. However, the REM sleep and slow wave sleep of regular alcoholics will be irreversibly reduced due to alcohol for a long time.
There are also drugs that keep people awake, such as caffeine and amphetamines. Depending on the dosage, the individual’s tolerance varies and the degree of interference to sleep varies. For people who are sensitive to caffeine, a cup of coffee in the morning may interfere with sleep at night.
(4) Subjective insomniaAs the name implies, These insomniacs complain of insomnia or excessive daytime sleeplessness, However, there is no objective evidence of sleep disorders. It is generally clinically called poor perception of sleep state. The exact etiology and pathogenesis are still unclear. Patients’ estimation of sleep time is biased and distorted. Mistaken the mental activities occurring during sleep as the feelings occurring during awakening, thus causing poor perception of sleep. If there is no effective treatment after the onset of the disease, symptoms of anxiety and depression may occur. Clinically, subjective insomnia patients often take sleeping pills to varying degrees and even appear drug dependence.