The "5 Rules for Good Sleep" begin with the first rule: "Value your sleep"
March 15 is celebrated as "World Sleep Day." - "Prioritize sleep and develop principles that suit you."
March 15 was established by the World Sleep Society as "World Sleep Day." Since 2008, this day has been celebrated every year on the Friday of the week of the spring equinox to raise awareness of the importance of sleep, which has a major impact on health and helps reduce the burden of sleep disorders and related diseases.
This year's World Sleep Day motto is "A healthy society where everyone sleeps well" (Sleep Equity for Global Health). It expresses the desire that at least sleep should be equitable for all, regardless of country, profession, or personal circumstances.
On the occasion of World Sleep Day, the UK Department of Health and the Mental Health Foundation present the "5 Principles for Good Sleep," published in the international journal of sleep research (Journal of Sleep Research) of the European Sleep Research Society.
The 5 principles for good sleep, written by Professor Colin Espie from the Sleep Medicine Institute at the University of Oxford, differ from previous sleep guidelines.
While previous sleep guidelines focused on what should be done and avoided for healthy sleep, these 5 principles focus on developing an individually optimized sleep method.
Value your sleep
Sleep is one of the most important physiological factors that give us the ability to live our lives. Just as we need oxygen to breathe, water to hydrate, and food to nourish, we also need sleep to maintain the functions of our body.
This includes regeneration and repair of tissue, metabolism, physical growth and development, immune defense, learning and memory performance, as well as emotional regulation. If the importance of sleep is unclear, remember how you would feel if you had not slept.
The first principle to achieve good sleep is to regard sleep as equally important as water, healthy nutrition, and fresh air.
Prioritize sleep
To ensure healthy sleep, sleep must be made a priority. This means taking the importance of sleep seriously and acting accordingly. Setting priorities means you should choose sleep when deciding between different tasks or at least place it at the top.
To achieve this, we need to listen to the signals from our body and brain that tell us we should lie down. This way, we can more easily connect tiredness, yawning, and sleep.
Of course, it can be difficult to prioritize sleep if you have shift work or night work. The important thing is that if it is difficult to decide when and how to sleep, you should focus on prioritizing sleep when the opportunity arises.
Develop sleep principles that suit you.
Both the temporal and qualitative dimensions of sleep are important. However, it cannot be said that the two are proportional, as individual sleep needs differ. Similar to how individual physical traits, appetite, and preferences differ.
That is why there is no definitive answer to the question, "how much sleep do I personally need?"
The answer can be discovered through trial and error, similar to how we learn most things in life. Just as finding the most comfortable shoes for us requires trying on different sizes, personalizing sleep is similar.
Trust your sleep pattern.
Consistent and stable sleep patterns, like a balanced diet and adequate hydration, are beneficial for health. To achieve this kind of sleep health, it is important to believe that sleep follows a good pattern.
People who sleep well usually do nothing other than believe and expect that sleep will come naturally. They usually have natural and regular patterns to get tired and fall asleep.
If sleep doesn't come, it's good to do something else for a while and then relax and "restart." The important thing is to get up at the same time every morning, regardless of sleep time. This strengthens the sleep-wake rhythm and establishes a reliable pattern. Recording every situation can be helpful in finding the optimal sleep pattern.
Protect your sleep.
It is also important to protect sleep by avoiding or blocking things that can disturb it. However, rather than overanalyzing and worrying about your sleep, it is better to maintain a pattern once you have found the right results through some experiments.
Also consider how your lifestyle habits can affect sleep. Stimulants like caffeine and nicotine can delay the onset of sleep, so it's good to avoid caffeinated drinks and smoking (including e-cigarettes) in the evening.
Alcohol particularly disrupts sleep in the later part of the night. Overeating shortly before bedtime also disturbs sleep. Efforts to protect sleep from tablets and smartphones are also necessary.
