“Just 10 minutes in bed before going to sleep”…’dangerous’ habit

• allforyouclick
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• on Jun 07, 2023

South Koreans’ sleep quality and quantity hover near the bottom of the world’s rankings. A decade of research has shown that low sleep duration and low sleep quality can increase the risk of depression. This is a warning sign that South Korea needs to get the right amount of sleep along with the right sleep habits.
Korean sleep duration ranks last after Japan… Only 1 in 10 Koreans say they sleep well
According to global sleep solutions brand ResMed, South Koreans are among the worst in the world for sleep quality and quantity so far this year. According to the company’s World Sleep Day survey of 269 people aged 18 and over in 12 countries, including South Korea, the United States, Japan, and China, the average South Korean sleeps 6.9 hours. This is second only to Japan and well below the average sleep time of 7.3 hours across the 12 countries.

When asked about the quantity and quality of their sleep, 50% and 55% of respondents said they were unsatisfied, respectively. This is significantly higher than the 35% and 37% dissatisfaction with sleep quantity and quality across the 12 countries. Only 10% of South Koreans said they feel refreshed and happy when they wake up in the morning. On the other hand, 59% say they feel tired and unhappy, more than double the average across the 12 countries. The survey also found that 45% of respondents have sleep habits that interfere with a good night’s sleep, such as watching TV, playing games, or engaging in social media activities before bed.
Sleepless Koreans…depression on the rise

Photo: Getty Images Bank

Among the findings, it is noteworthy that less sleep time and poor sleep quality increase the likelihood of depression. A team of researchers led by Professors Yoon Ji-Eun, Department of Neurology, Suncheon National University Bucheon Hospital, and Yoon Chang-Ho, Department of Neurology, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, randomly selected 2836 and 2658 adults in 2009 and 2018, respectively, and examined their waking hours, bedtime, total sleep time, subjective experience of sleep deprivation, sleep quality, and depression, and found that those who slept less than five hours a day had up to 3.74 times higher risk of developing depression than those who slept seven to eight hours.

Specifically, the prevalence of depression increased from 4.6% in 2009 to 8.4% in 2018. Average sleep duration decreased by 19 minutes스포츠토토, from 7 hours and 27 minutes to 7 hours and 8 minutes. The percentage of people perceiving themselves as sleep deprived jumped from 30.4% to 44.3%. Sleep latency, the time it takes to reach sleep, increased by 8 minutes on weekdays (from 7 to 15 minutes) and 7 minutes on weekends (from 9 to 16 minutes), and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), a measure of sleep quality, increased from 3.6 to 3.8, with a score above 5 indicating potential sleep deprivation. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Neurology, an international journal published by the Korean Society of Neurology.

“Recently, the importance of proper sleep habits has been emphasized as it has been found that poor sleep habits increase the risk of developing various diseases,” said Prof. Ji-Eun Yoon. “However, irregular sleep habits and sleep disorders are increasing due to changes in modern society, such as the aging of Korean society, the increase in shift work and night work, and the use of digital media.” “Insufficient sleep duration and poor sleep quality can lead to a variety of diseases, including stroke and cardiovascular disease, in addition to depression,” said Dr. Yoon. “In particular, sleeping less than five hours or more than nine hours increases the risk of depression, so it is important to ensure adequate sleep duration.”
A US study tracked 200 million social media posts
“Social media use before bed is associated with falling asleep 1-3 hours later”

Photo: Getty Images Bank

For many of us who are tired whether we get enough sleep or not, the biggest enemy of a good night’s sleep is our smartphones. It’s not uncommon for people to document their day on social media at the end of the day before going to sleep. In the U.S., studies have shown that social media activity before bedtime has a negative impact on sleep.

Dr. William Mason and colleagues at Duke University in the US tracked 236 million posts on the social media community Reddit between 2005 and 2021. They analyzed the timestamps of 44,000 posts to prove that people who post on social media before bedtime are less likely to fall asleep. In fact, the researchers observed that those who posted within an hour of their average bedtime were still posting on social media one to three hours later, which naturally leads to less sleep.

“Frequent social media engagement and additional commenting and scrolling activities were associated with sleeping later and spending more time on social media,” said Dr. William Mayerson, “This could be the result of a number of factors, including the light from smartphone screens disrupting daily sleep rhythms.”