Are you sleeping right?

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Are you sleeping right?

Monday, 29 June 2020 | Team Viva

Are you sleeping right?

Our sleep patterns have been compromised by lockdown-induced anxieties. Experts advise we follow a good day and night routine, exercise adequately and avoid excess coffee and alcohol

With all that has been happening around the world, everybody is going through a lot of stress these days. Anxiety levels are on the rise, too. With an aim to analyse sleep patterns during the lockdown, a sleep monitoring device company has studied sleep of over 382 people (14,483 sleeps recorded over 10 weeks) belonging to the age group of 10 to 85 years.

Various parameters such as sleep duration, sleeping time, wake up time and stress levels were monitored. Dr Manvir Bhatia, sleep expert shared,“During this time, I have seen more than 100 patients (teleconsultation) of all ages and genders with sleep complaints. This has resulted in the heaviness of head during the day, increased lethargy, poor productivity and a low mood. These problems appeared new in some patients and some who already had insomnia were doing much worse during this period. As symptoms of anxiety, a few also had complaints of palpitations and difficulty in breathing just before falling asleep. The advice to everyone is to make sure you follow a good day and night routine, adequate exercise, avoid excess use of caffeine and alcohol, and have a relaxing pre-bedtime routine. If the problems persist then please seek help and do not self medicate.”

Following were the parameters explained in detail:

Sleep duration: Time period where the person is actually sleeping (in N1, N2, N3, REM stage of the sleep cycle). Sleep duration during lockdown didn’t deviate much and the median sleep duration continued to remain 430 minutes. For people between 35 to 45 years, median sleep duration increased nearly by 60 minutes and this was particularly found among men.

Sleep time: Sleep onset time, another parameter, especially in the age group of 10 to 45 years had increased by almost 30 minutes. There was a gender disparity when it comes to sleep time. Women’s sleep time increased by nearly 90 minutes. However, for men, it increased only by 20 minutes. Women in the 18 to 45 age-group are staying up 90 minutes more late than usual. Earlier, 40 per cent of people used to sleep before 12 am and during lockdown, only 36 per cent of people are sleeping before 12 am.

Wake up time: Wake up time has increased by 30 minutes across all age groups. However, between 18 to 45 years of age, the wake up time has increased by 70 minutes. While median wake up time for women increased by more than 90 minutes (from 7.30 am to 8.45 am), for males, it increased by 60 minutes (from 7.45 am to 8.45 am). This is a big shift in the circadian rhythm (or biological clock) that governs the hormone cycle in our body. Once this cycle is off, we are at a higher risk of lifestyle disorders such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and mental disorders. Earlier, 53 per cent of people used to wake up after 8 am and during the lockdown, 49 per cent of people are waking up after 8 am.

Time taken to fall asleep: It’s the time period elapsed between the person going to bed and falling asleep. The time taken to fall asleep has gradually increased during the lockdown and has doubled during the first week of May. It has been witnessed across all age groups. Time taken to fall asleep is directly linked to insomnia, which in turn, is highly co-morbid with depression. Growing anxiety because of the lockdown and financial insecurity might be the leading reasons for this increase in the time to fall asleep.

Stress levels: Autonomous nervous system activity measured through heart rate variability: There wasn’t any significant change in the stress levels of people witnessed. Even though the lockdown has changed people’s routine, the stress levels for them have remained the same.

Naps: Initially, the number of naps increased, however, now a dip has been witnessed once the lockdown started to open up.

(The survey is conducted by Dozee.)

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