BEIJING: Sleep medicine experts urge the public to pay more attention to their sleep health ahead of World Sleep Day which falls on Mar 21 .
There are 300 million people with sleeping disorders in China and half of them need medical intervention, said Han Fang, general secretary of World Sleep Society and director of center for respiratory sleep medicine at Beijing University People’s Hospital, at an awareness raising event Friday.
“If a sleep disorder causes physical unfitness like memory deterioration and complication like elevated blood pressure, one should seek medical assistance,” he urged.
Initiated by experts of sleep medicine research in 2007, World Sleep Day, has been celebrated for 16 years, and focuses on “Healthy sleep, Healthy life” this year.
According to the 2023 China healthy sleep white paper, released on Feb 27 by Chinese Sleep Research Society and DeRUCCI, a household products company, the average sleep quality of those surveyed decreased significantly and 60.4% of them have had issues with their sleep since Nov 2022. Their Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, an indicator of sleep quality, fell from 5.6 to 7.2, signalling a transition from “normal” to “sleep disorder.”
Ann, a mother of a narcolepsy patient, said the chronic sleep disorder brought a lot of mental and physical challenges to her family.
–The Daily Mail-China Daily news exchange item
