Zhou Shuangzuo, director of the Sleep Medicine Center at Beijing Huilongguan Hospital, estimates that he currently receives approximately forty to fifty patients with sleep disorders every day, nearly half of whom are young people in their twenties and thirties, most of whom are office workers and some college students. "Most of the people who come to the sleep department to seek help are elderly people and those who are in the pre menopausal period. In recent years, the trend of younger people with sleep disorders has become particularly evident, and young people's sleep problems mainly include insomnia and circadian rhythm disorders." Zhou Shuangjiang said in an interview with a Chinese journalist. To ensure normal secretion of melatonin, it is recommended to have a young female patient who was previously treated by Shuangjiang before 23:00. When she first started working, she was often called up from her sleep late at night due to work needs. Due to long-term sleep deprivation, the quality of her sleep deteriorated. Later on, although work was adjusted and night shifts were no longer required, there were problems with sleep rhythm, making it difficult to fall asleep and maintain sleep duration even after taking sleep aids. She began to experience anxiety and depression, with increasingly severe symptoms and had to be hospitalized for treatment. Through cognitive-behavioral therapy and medication intervention targeting insomnia, the patient's anxiety and depression symptoms are basically relieved after one month, and sleep can also be maintained through medication. However, when the patient returned for a follow-up visit a few weeks after discharge, her sleep disorders began to worsen again, and she was just over 30 years old at the time. Zhou Shuangzuo found in the outpatient department that insomnia, sleep deprivation, and circadian rhythm disorders can overlap in many young people. According to Zhou Shuangjiang's analysis, these young people face significant work and study pressure during the day, and are reluctant to sleep at night. They resort to compensatory staying up late to refresh their phones, tablets, and other electronic devices to "rest", resulting in repeated delays in sleep and wakefulness, leading to disrupted circadian rhythms. This pattern of delayed onset and awakening time of sleep is medically known as "sleep phase delay syndrome.". Zhou Shuangzuo explained that delayed sleep phase may seem to ensure the duration of sleep, but in reality, it can lead to poor sleep quality. This is because melatonin is the main factor determining sleep, and the secretion of melatonin is regulated by light. Melatonin secretion levels increase in dark environments at night, with a peak at 1:30 a.m. and a significant increase in melatonin secretion at 22-23 a.m. Therefore, it is recommended to fall asleep at least before 23:00. Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia helps restore circadian rhythms. "Many young people who come to the clinic for help actually know the reasons for their sleep problems, but the long-term bad sleep habits they develop are difficult to change," Zhou Shuangzuo said. For these patients, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is generally adopted first in clinical practice to adjust the sleep rhythm. The core content of cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is sleep restriction therapy and stimulus control therapy. Sleep restriction mainly stores sleep drivers by limiting bed time and improving sleep efficiency. Sleep efficiency is an indicator used to measure sleep quality, which refers to the ratio of actual sleep time to time spent lying in bed. The sleep efficiency of a normal person is around 95%. Zhou Shuangzuo introduced that in the first week of treatment, the overall time the patient stays in bed should be controlled close to their actual sleep time, so that the patient's sleep efficiency can be improved to over 90%. As sleep efficiency improves, the amount of time spent in bed gradually increases,
Edit：GuoGuo Responsible editor：FangZhiYou
Source：gmw.cn
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