The topic of "15-year-old students suffering from insomnia" has attracted attention
Do high school students also have difficulty falling asleep?
Recently, the topic of "a 15-year-old high school freshman suffering from insomnia" has attracted attention on the Internet. Some adults expressed their incomprehension: "Why do you suffer from insomnia at the age of 'falling asleep next to the pillow'?" Beijing Youth The newspaper reporter learned that the problem of insomnia among high school students is not an isolated case.
According to Deng Zhaohua, a psychological counselor of the youth psychological mutual aid platform "Walking Through", among the youth visitors she receives, the insomnia of middle and high school students has indeed increased in recent years.
Anxiety of high school students before exams
No more "sleeping with your head next to the pillow"
Wang Yachen is a sophomore in Shanghai. He is 17 years old and has suffered from insomnia for three years.
Since the third year of junior high school, he found that he could not "sleep with his head next to the pillow" as before.
Among them, the most exaggerated one was before the senior high school entrance examination, he stayed up all night, and when he lay down, he would think of the next day's exam, so he had to get up and continue to review, but the next day his head was groggy and his performance was abnormal.
After entering high school, Wang Yachen's insomnia did not improve with the end of the senior high school entrance examination, but became more and more serious.
During his two years in high school, most of the nights, he needed to lie in bed for at least an hour before he could fall asleep in a daze.
"The competitive pressure in our school is very high, and every student around me is very 'rolled', which makes me very anxious." Wang Yachen said that every time he lay on the bed, he would feel a "guilty feeling", and he would unconsciously Think about the knowledge points that you haven't learned yet, and the scene of other students burning the lights to fight at night emerges in your mind, and then calculate how long it is before the exam...
Many high school students suffer from insomnia around the time of the senior high school entrance examination. Xiao Lei, a freshman girl from a middle school in Chongqing, has been suffering from insomnia since the third year of junior high school.
The one that impressed her the most happened in the days before the results of the first mock test of the senior high school entrance examination were not released. She felt that she did not do well in the test. What to do, what to do if you can’t finish the review before the high school entrance examination, what to do if you are not admitted, I kept thinking about it after I went to bed, until 2 o’clock in the morning, I suddenly sat up from the bed, and suddenly realized that after so long, I still haven’t sleep."
After entering the first year of high school, Xiaolei also suffered from insomnia several times due to nervousness, anxiety, and fear before the exam. In the end, she survived this extremely long night by "surviving life". Every time she thought about "Time passes by every minute and every second, and I will be liberated after these few days" to comfort myself.
Xiao Guo, a senior high school student in a high school in Shanghai, has also been troubled by insomnia for two years. It usually takes him one to two hours to fall asleep after going to bed, and he can't fall asleep all night when the exam is approaching.
On the night before the mid-term exam in the first year of high school, Xiao Guo planned to go to bed early to recharge his energy and prepare for the next day's exam. He went to bed at 10 o'clock in the evening, but the moment his head touched the pillow, he I started to worry about the exam, for fear that I would not perform well on the spot.
In order to suppress his cranky thoughts, he warned himself that he must go to bed as soon as possible to pass the test.
Although he had silently said "don't think about anything" in his heart more than once, it was counterproductive. His mood would fluctuate in this contradiction, and finally he lost all sleepiness.
"Counting sheep" gets more sober
Getting up and continuing to study relieves anxiety
After insomnia for a long time, Wang Yachen found that he began to doze off more in class. He realized that if he does not want to miss the class and study efficiently, he must first ensure the quality of his sleep, so he started the road of sleep aid.
At first, he felt that he couldn't fall asleep because his body was not tired enough, so he tried to exercise before going to bed, but every time he sweated profusely, his heart beat faster, his body became more excited, and he couldn't fall asleep at all.
The "moving" method didn't work, so he tried "quiet" again.
He tried "478 breathing method", which is a sleep therapy introduced by a doctor in the United States and called "a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system".
This method requires breathing through the nose for 4 seconds, holding the breath for 7 seconds, and then breathing through the mouth for 8 seconds. Through repeated operations, the effect of sedation can be achieved.
After several attempts, Wang Yachen gave up, "I'm so focused on counting seconds, it's hard to calm down."
If you can't sleep, then "count sheep". Li Jie has also tried this traditional method of sleep aid, but it didn't work.
And in his case, the more "sheep" he counted, the worse his anxiety would be.
At this time, he would ask himself, "How many sheep do I need to count before I can fall asleep?"
"When I have insomnia, I will sit up from the bed from time to time to check the time, calculate how many hours I can sleep, and find that this will greatly increase the level of anxiety, so I try to relax myself, such as counting sheep to distract myself, but nothing. The effect." For Xiaolei, the sheep counting strategy also failed.
Li Jie also tried to relieve anxiety by reading books and listening to music. Although sometimes he would slowly lose consciousness and fall asleep due to gradual mental fatigue, but most of the time he still could not sleep at night.
Sometimes, Xiao Lei would just give up on going to bed and sit at the desk to start doing unfinished homework.
She found that after studying for a period of time, she was not as anxious as before going to bed, and it was easier to fall asleep.
Especially at night when you can't sleep, if you complete the unfinished study tasks during the day, you will feel much more at ease when you go to bed.
Xiao Guo also felt that instead of lying in bed and unable to fall asleep, it is better to get up and review. He believes that studying may be the best way to relieve anxiety. When anxiety disappears, it will also help sleep.
Listen to simulated sounds of different scenes
Immerse yourself in it to achieve sleep aid effect
A classmate with insomnia recommended to Wang Yachen the method of "doing the questions before going to bed", but Wang Yachen found that doing the questions would aggravate his anxiety. Solve this problem.
In some posts on the Internet discussing insomnia or sleep aids, it is not difficult to find high school students. In their chats, many students also mentioned that they have tried white noise and other methods to help sleep, and they think "the effect is good." .
Wang Yachen tried a sleep aid method called ASMR, which was recommended to him by other insomniac classmates. After trying it, he found that it was "very effective".
The four letters of ASMR are A (Autonomous), S (Sensory), M (Meridian), and R (Response), which refer to a spontaneous sensory meridian response.
On the Internet, some sleep aid bloggers will simulate some scene sounds, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in the atmosphere created by this sound, so as to achieve the effect of sleep aid.
For example, some bloggers will simulate the sound of ocean waves, the sound of unscrewing the cap of a moisturizer oil bottle, the sound of bubbles from an upside-down water bottle, the sound of fingernails tapping the microphone lightly, and the sound of wood blocks lightly hitting each other. Sounds... Through these sounds, the listener can soothe the nerves.
Wang Yachen likes all kinds of knocking sounds very much. He thinks it can make him relax, and his academic troubles seem to be knocked away.
And his favorite is the sound of rain, every time he listens to it he will feel very comfortable.
Although his insomnia cannot be cured all at once, it has indeed improved a lot. Now he can fall asleep within 15 to 20 minutes.
Topic bloggers think
Scene sound sleep aid varies from person to person
Regarding the effect of treating insomnia, the blogger "Hu Chi Hu Chi" believes that ASMR sleep aids are not very effective for everyone, "after all, it varies from person to person."
"Hu Chi Hu Chi" said that she rarely suffers from insomnia. When she was in college, because the sisters in the same dormitory had irregular schedules, they often didn't go to bed until after 12 o'clock in the evening. She wanted to remind her roommates but was afraid of causing conflicts, so she had to wear it herself. There is a headset, but it can't completely block the ears, so she found sleep-helping music on the Internet, played it through the headset, and fell asleep after listening to it. When she woke up, she felt extraordinarily comfortable.
Therefore, when she saw someone discussing insomnia on the Internet, she recommended this sleep aid method to netizens, and even became a "special blogger" afterwards.
After becoming a blogger, she found that there are many groups troubled by insomnia, and many of them are students, not only college students, but even high school students.
A high school student, Jian Hui, said that whenever she lay down from the first year of high school, there would be a buzzing sound in her ears, but there was no sound in the room.
After being unable to take a good rest for a month, she begged her mother to take her to the hospital for an ear examination, and it turned out that there was no abnormality.
Although the mother knew that her daughter would sometimes watch sleep aid videos, she never thought about insomnia.
Jian Hui said that the sleep aid video really helped her. Over the past year, Jian Hui’s insomnia has been greatly improved, and the strange buzzing sound rarely reappears, but she still often watches it before going to bed. A sleep aid video as a relaxation ritual before falling asleep.
Being able to help high school students like Jian Hui get back to sleep, the blogger "Hu Chi Hu Chi" feels very fulfilling, but she still hopes that some children will be less anxious or even insomnia because of their studies. "Exams are just a stage in the learning process. Well, it might be better to relax."
Expert Interpretation
The best sleep aid is for teens to relax
Deng Zhaohua, a psychological counselor of the youth psychological mutual aid platform "Walking Through", is also a hypnotherapist.
According to her, among the teenagers she receives, the insomnia of middle and high school students has indeed increased in recent years.
According to her observation, the main reasons for the insomnia of these middle and high school students come from two aspects, one is study pressure, and the other is interpersonal communication.
Because junior high school students are in adolescence, their hormone levels are unstable, and their cognition of the world is not comprehensive, so they will have a lot of confusion in life and study, which will cause some mental stress and cause insomnia.
Deng Zhaohua believes that it is normal for some middle and high school students to suffer from insomnia that their parents and teachers do not understand. Classwork pressure, but the source of pressure is relatively single, limited by the way of communication at that time, the external scope of pressure is relatively small."
"At that time, we could only compare the test scores with the classmates in the class, but now children can see the learning situation of middle school students all over the country and even the world. In addition to the test scores at school, there are also extracurricular achievements and lifestyle comparisons. Teacher Deng believes that the information overload brought about by the Internet is also one of the sources of stress for contemporary teenagers.
However, Mr. Deng specially reminded that the so-called "insomnia" of many junior high school students on the Internet is not "insomnia" in the medical sense, but can only be said to be "difficulty falling asleep" or a stress response before important events such as exams. Therefore, there is no need for teenagers and their families to panic too much.
Whether it is insomnia or difficulty falling asleep, Ms. Deng believes that the best way to help teenagers have a better sleep is to let them relax.
Teenagers can find ways to relax that work for them.
For example, you can actively participate in physical exercise or social practice to give your brain enough time to rest; for example, some students are troubled by life or interpersonal relationships, so they can talk to their family members or teachers; some students are troubled by knowledge points that they cannot learn , then simply ask the teacher for help to solve the learning problems, "As long as teenagers relieve their mental stress points, their sleep will tend to improve."
Text in this edition/Reporter Zhang Ziyuan
Intern Zheng Yunxi Lei Jiayan Liu Zhonghan
Illustrations in this edition except for the signature / Coordinating by Yuan Guoming / Lin Yan and Zhang Bin