In recent years, the global aging problem has become increasingly serious, and China's population has entered the aging stage rapidly. According to the survey, the aging level of China's population is close to 20%, and it is expected to increase by 1 million per year before 2035. By the end of 2020, the number of people aged 60 or above has exceeded 260 million, accounting for 18.7 percent of the total population, according to the results of China's seventh population census. Relevant research data show that 18.4%-54.6% of the elderly population in China have sleep disorders. With the continuous increase of age, the problem of sleep quality in the elderly population is becoming more and more prominent.

So how can older people manage their sleep? Let's see what sleep therapist Professor Zhang Meikui has to offer.

Food therapy for sleep

The elderly can carry out dietary care, if you usually mood fluctuations are relatively large, you can choose sand nuts pot lean meat porridge, tea recommended roses, alacacia flowers and other traditional Chinese medicine with qi qi depression effect. If you usually have hands and feet heart hot old friends can also eat some Ganmai jujube soup, you can choose ophiopogon, Dendrobium, lily, jade bamboo and other traditional Chinese medicine tea. For elderly patients with daily fatigue, we can choose codonopsis, Astragalus, yam, jujube and other traditional Chinese medicine to make tea, plain plain Tanyin can also eat tangerine peel porridge or choose poria, coix seed and other wet traditional Chinese medicine to make tea.

Exercise for sleep

Reasonable, lasting and regular exercise can enhance the body's ability to adapt to the external environment, improve sugar and lipid metabolism, thereby improving the quality of life and achieving the purpose of "treating no disease". Traditional Chinese medicine exercises such as Wuqin, Taijiquan and Baduanjin are popular in China for many years of health exercise, suitable for the elderly operation with strong tendons and bones, harmonizing blood and qi, maintenance of internal organs.

Herbal foot soaking

Feet are the root of the human body, more than 60 points of the human body converge on the feet, elderly friends can choose "herbal foot bath package" before going to bed to soak feet to help sleep.

6g bupleurum, 10g scutellaria, 15g Coptis 6g

Fructus aurantii 15g Danshen 30g jujube kernel 20g calamus 10g

Night rattan 15g Alacia flower 15g Poria God 15g

Operation method:

1. Soak the medicine in cool water for 20 minutes.

2. Bring to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.

3. Add a small amount of cool water and control the temperature at 38-43 degrees.

4. The duration is usually 30 minutes.

aromatherapy

Traditional Chinese medicine sachets: aromatic drugs "through the meridian, open the sky through the bone" role, through the mouth and nose inhalation and skin, meridian acupoint absorption, sleeping sachets can play a calming role.

Aromatherapy: In the process of incense, it can not only purify the environment, but also play a calming and calming role in the body's mind, so as to achieve the purpose of nourishing the spirit and maintaining the healthy qi.

Emotional care

Build a bridge of "care"; with your heart, and while moving forward, you must not forget the road you have traveled. No matter how far you go, no matter how brilliant you can't forget why you set out and return to your original heart! We should give more care to the elderly and reduce their anxiety and depression.

Insomnia is a sleep disorder caused by various factors, such as body causes, environmental factors, psychological factors and so on. Patients usually show shallow sleep depth, wake up too many times during the night sleep, wake up early for a long time, and wake up tired and weak. Insomnia has great harm to the elderly, inducing palpitations, vertigo probability is high, but also lead to their immunity, memory decline, cognitive dysfunction. Clinically, benzodiazepines and antidepressants are usually used to treat insomnia, but these drugs have certain adverse reactions and need to be taken under the guidance of doctors.

Experts suggest that the elderly need to pay high attention to sleep disorders, we should strengthen health education while actively treating, the family should pay attention to accompany and care, give it more emotional care, promote a healthy life and scientific way of sleep, through sleep management to improve the sleep quality of the elderly population.

Author:

Zhang Meikui, a family of traditional Chinese medicine, chief physician, medical postdoc, doctoral supervisor, is currently the director of the telemedicine Department of the Medical Security Center of the PLA General Hospital, the executive director of the Chinese Geriatric Society, and the president of the Telemedicine Branch of the Chinese Geriatric Society.

    He has been engaged in clinical research and characteristic treatment of integrated Chinese and Western medicine for cerebrovascular diseases for a long time. He is good at the diagnosis and treatment of insomnia, headache, vertigo, stroke, facial palsy and other diseases, especially has a unique treatment method for intractable sleep disorders. He proposes to treat psychosomatic disorders such as sleep disorders, depression, anxiety disorder, phobia and other somatic disorders in a systematic and all-round way, and innovates a medical mode of cooperation between Chinese and Western medicine and Western medicine. Highlight and give play to the synergistic advantages of traditional Chinese and Western medicine, social prescription and family treatment in disease treatment.

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