The "5 Rules for Good Sleep" begins with the first rule: "Value your sleep"
March 15th is celebrated as “World Sleep Day”. - "Prioritize sleep and develop principles that suit you."
March 15th was established as “World Sleep Day” by the World Society for Sleep Medicine. Since 2008, this day has been celebrated every year on the Friday of the week of the vernal equinox to promote the importance of sleep, which has a great impact on health and helps reduce the burden of sleep disorders and related diseases.
This year's theme for World Sleep Day is "A healthy society where everyone sleeps well" (Sleep Equity for Global Health). It expresses the wish that at least sleep should be equal for everyone, regardless of country, profession or personal circumstances.
To mark World Sleep Day, the UK Public Health Agency and the Mental Health Foundation present the "5 Principles for Good Sleep", published in the European Sleep Research Society's international journal of sleep research.
The 5 Principles for Good Sleep, written by Professor Colin Espie from the University of Oxford's Institute of Sleep Medicine, 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.
Treasure your sleep
Sleep is one of the most important physiological factors that give us the ability to lead our lives. Similar to how we need oxygen to breathe, water to hydrate, and food to nourish ourselves, we also need sleep to maintain our body's functions.
These include regeneration and repair of tissue, metabolism, physical growth and development, immune defense, learning and memory performance, and emotional regulation. If the meaning of sleep isn't clear, think about how you would feel if you hadn't slept.
The first principle to achieve good sleep is to treat sleep as important as water, healthy food 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 on it. Prioritizing means that you should choose sleep when choosing between different tasks or at least make it a top priority.
To achieve this, we must listen to the signals from our body and brain that tell us to lie down. This way we can more easily make the connection between 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's difficult to decide when and how to sleep, you should focus on prioritizing sleep when the opportunity arises.
Develop sleep principles that suit you.
The temporal and qualitative dimensions of sleep are both important. However, the two cannot be said to be proportional as individual sleep needs differ. Similar to how individual physical characteristics, appetites and preferences vary.
That's 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 like 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, such as a balanced diet and adequate hydration, are beneficial for health. To achieve this type of sleep health, it is important to believe that sleep is in a good pattern.
People who sleep well usually do nothing other than believe and expect sleep to come naturally. They usually have natural and regular patterns for getting tired and falling asleep.
When sleep doesn't come, it's good to do something else for a while and then relax and "reboot." The important thing is to get up at the same time every morning, regardless of sleep time. This strengthens the sleep-wake cycle and establishes a reliable pattern. Recording each situation can be helpful in finding the optimal sleep pattern.
Protect your sleep.
It's also important to protect sleep by avoiding or blocking things that can disrupt it. However, instead of overanalyzing and worrying about your sleep, it is better to maintain a pattern once you get 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 later at night. Overeating right before bed also disrupts sleep. Efforts to protect sleep from tablets and smartphones are also necessary.
