What is sleep?
To clarify insomnia, it is first necessary to have a correct and basic understanding of healthy sleep. Sleep, first and foremost, is a physiological activity, and like eating, it is an instinctive activity. After birth, babies will eat and sleep without being trained by others. This is an innate ability.
The overall trend of human sleep time, as we get older, is less and less. Therefore, in many cases, it is a normal and natural phenomenon for older people to experience shorter and lighter sleep, and there is no need to be nervous or afraid. Some people say that the normal sleep is 8 hours, but this is actually a misunderstanding or not appropriate enough. Each person has a different need for sleep time due to physiological and psychological differences.
Generally speaking, it is mostly within 6 to 9 hours. As long as you compare yourself with yourself, there is no significant difference in the length of sleep before and after a certain period of time. And don’t bother to compare with others, and don’t envy people who have long sleep time.
Sleep, on the surface, looks simple and calm, but in fact it is not simple. After sleep is initiated, a person first enters a light sleep state, which lasts for some time and then enters a deep sleep state, and the muscles become more and more relaxed. Then it goes from deep to light, and next enters another state of sleep, the sleep with dreams. At this time, you do not know you are dreaming unless you are woken up.
After dreaming for a quarter of an hour or so, the person will go back to a light sleep again. In this way, sleep from light to deep, from deep to light again, and then dreaming, constitutes a sleep cycle. A night usually involves 4~5 such sleep cycles, which means that a person actually dreams for at least 4~5 hours a night. It is only when one wakes up during the dreaming period that one realizes that one is dreaming, otherwise one feels “dreamless”.
The significance of sleep is not only to restore energy and strength, during sleep, the human brain is like a computer server, but also in the background silently processing a lot of information, including the processing of memory information, integration and so on. Some people like to stay up late to study, in fact, this is the most uneconomical strategy. Deprivation of sleep time is tantamount to disrupting the brain’s opportunity to process learning material, which in turn reduces memory function.
In addition, some endocrine changes occur during sleep, including the secretion of growth hormone. Some children grow very tall in their youth, of which sleep is credited with the right and left. In addition, sleep has many functions, such as improving the immunity of the body.
Some insomnia is artificial
Since sleep, like eating, is an instinctive activity, it is generally something that can be accomplished without subjective effort. Just as people eat, when one chews and then swallows the food, the food enters the digestive system. No one is concerned with whether the food has entered the stomach or the small intestine, whether enough digestive juices have been secreted, etc. The digestive system naturally does this series of work independently. Sleep itself has a similar function. We have structures in our brain that are specifically responsible for sleep and wakefulness.
However, some people overstate the role of sleep and the danger of insomnia, and once they lose sleep, they immediately become very alert and try to make up for it the next day, or go to bed earlier, or force themselves to sleep at a certain time. As a result, this subjective effort interferes with the rhythm of sleep itself, inhibits the function of sleep itself, and makes oneself excited, alert and even anxious when going to sleep with a “purpose”.
As a result, the relaxed state of sleep itself runs counter to it, and insomnia is inevitable. Once a few nights in a row of insomnia, some people will feel that this is a serious health problem, and will continue to find ways to “try hard” to sleep, resulting in a vicious circle, the more you want to sleep at night, the more excited, and when you should not sleep during the day, but drowsy. Sleep is thus transformed into insomnia by subjective efforts. Insomnia is also maintained by inappropriate attention.
In fact, if one stays up continuously, sleep itself builds up some sleep pressure, and it is hard not to be sleepy when it comes to bedtime. If there is no human intervention, the person itself will fall asleep quickly. It is those excessive expectations and concerns about sleep that lead to insomnia.
Some insomnia is a sign of mental illness
There are also some patients who have insomnia that is different from the above. Some people may not have any direct cause and sleep gradually becomes less desirable, such as slow sleep and easy waking, especially early waking. Gradually during the day, there is depressed mood, upset, less talkative, less interest, decreased appetite, and less energy. At this time, depression may occur. Insomnia is just one of the manifestations of depression, one of the many symptoms of depression. However, it is the most easily recognized and detected symptom.
At this time, if insomnia alone is dealt with, the effect is limited. Treatment of insomnia needs to be carried out along with antidepressant treatment to treat both the symptoms and the root cause. When depression subsides, insomnia will slowly improve with it.
Many middle-aged and older adults are at increased risk for depression due to comorbid physical illnesses, as well as age. Often, insomnia is the first symptom to appear. At this point, if there is a combination of emotional problems, it is best to visit a psychiatric or psychological unit to rule out the presence of depression.
Of course, many other psychological disorders can also be associated with insomnia. It is important to tell your doctor about your insomnia and the accompanying psychiatric symptoms at the time of your visit so that you do not miss out on your condition.
What should I do if I have insomnia?
Although both are instinctive activities, sleep seems to be more easily affected by psychological factors than eating. What should I do if I have insomnia? It depends on the situation.
If you only occasionally have insomnia due to psychological factors, you can do some abdominal breathing to calm your mind. You can do this: lie on your back in bed, first slowly and deeply inhale, while the abdomen bulge, inhalation time is maintained at about six to seven seconds, until you can no longer inhale, you can at the same time in the heart silently check six to seven numbers, 1,2,3, ~ 7, and then slowly exhale, while contracting the abdomen, also maintained at six to seven seconds, until you can no longer exhale gas gas.
This completes a belly breathing session. Each abdominal breathing can last 12 to 15 seconds, the number of breaths per minute in four to five times. And with a slower breathing rate, the person’s mood will gradually return to calm, the body will relax, and sleep will slowly kick in.
If insomnia is caused by a poor sleep attitude, it is important to establish new sleep beliefs. While sleep is important, it is important not to overstate the dangers of insomnia and to reduce interventions to ensure that it performs its own regulatory function. Just like Auntie Zhang, as stated in the previous case, more measures taken equals more expectations of sleep and more psychological pressure, which in turn will inhibit sleep’s own regulatory function. When performing these activities, do not establish a subjective connection with sleep.
For example, if you drink milk, just experience the sweetness of milk; if you soak your feet, just enjoy the comfort of the water; if you take a walk, just enjoy the roadside scenery. The less expectation sleep carries, the easier it is to perform its own function.
If insomnia is accompanied by other significant psychological changes, it is best to see a doctor. To rule out whether it is an early manifestation of some mental illness.
In short, sleep is like a child, it needs attention and management, but it is better to let it happen. Let the sleep itself perform its original function.