Sleep health preservation

Author: Zhang Qinghua, Luo Weifan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-02-01
Features:
1. What is insomnia? In the Middle Ages, Frank King Louis sentenced a person to death using the method of "deprivation of sleep." If the person showed the slightest sign of drowsiness, they would be whipped or burned. Before dying, this person said, "There is nothing more painful in the world than not sleeping." A physiologist once conducted an experiment: dogs could live for about a month without food, but without sleep, they could only survive for 6 days. Sleep accounts for one-third of a person's life, and if sleep problems persist, it's no wonder that modern people sigh over their low quality of life. Approximately 40% of Chinese people suffer from insomnia, but only 25% choose to seek medical attention. Insomnia is a symptom, not a disease. Insomnia refers to dissatisfaction with one's sleep condition. Its main clinical manifestations include difficulty falling asleep, frequent waking, difficulty falling back asleep after waking, frequent dreams, early awakening, daytime fatigue, and exhaustion. In foreign countries, insomnia is also quantified as a standard: not being able to fall asleep within 30 minutes after getting into bed and turning off the lights, waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to fall back asleep within 30 minutes, waking up more than three times a night, sleeping less than 6 hours a night, or having poor sleep for three nights a week, all of which are considered insomnia. Many people think they have insomnia after having one or two nights of poor sleep and classify themselves as people with sleep problems, but this is not necessarily the case. Insomnia is a sleep deficiency caused by various reasons and is the most common type of sleep disorder. The most common sleep disorders refer to insufficient sleep time or poor sleep quality, such as not sleeping deeply or soundly, often difficulty falling asleep, difficulty maintaining sleep, or early awakening, resulting in sleep quality and quantity that do not meet the individual's physiological needs. This leads to patients feeling varying degrees of exhaustion and experiencing various symptoms, as if they have not had adequate rest or their energy has not been restored. Insomnia can be said to be a subjective feeling, a state where the quantity and quality of sleep do not meet one's needs. The insomnia commonly referred to is not a state of completely being unable to sleep, but rather a feeling of dissatisfaction with one's sleep during the sleep process or after waking up. In daily life, people often confuse sleep deprivation with insomnia. In reality, insomnia is not the same as sleep deprivation. Insomnia, to some extent, implies sleep deprivation, but sleep deprivation does not necessarily cause insomnia. The distinction between the two is as follows: insomnia is a sleep deficiency caused by insomnia sufferers who want to sleep but cannot, leading to discomfort and pain from this sleep state; sleep deprivation, on the other hand, is caused by certain activities or engagements that prevent sufficient sleep time, resulting in fatigue due to lack of sleep, but the person does not experience significant psychological discomfort. Additionally, there are some people known as "short sleepers," who sleep very little but remain highly energetic and without any pain—these individuals are not insomnia sufferers. Insomnia is a very common sleep disorder, and almost everyone has experienced it at some point. With the development of society, the pace of life is accelerating, and prolonged mental stress and excessive pressure are causing an increasing number of healthy people to join the ranks of insomnia sufferers, with the incidence of insomnia on the rise. Epidemiological surveys in foreign countries show that 20% to 30% of adults...