Sleep and Lifestyle Medicine in Viet Nam: From Sleep Duration to Insomnia and Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Sleep and Lifestyle Medicine in Viet Nam: From Sleep Duration to Insomnia and Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Last reviewed: September 2026

Sleep is one of the core pillars of Lifestyle Medicine, but healthy sleep is often reduced to a single question: How many hours do you sleep?

Sleep duration matters, but it is only part of the picture. A person may spend eight hours in bed and still have fragmented, unrefreshing sleep because of obstructive sleep apnea. Someone else may allow sufficient time for sleep but remain awake for long periods because of chronic insomnia. A shift worker may obtain enough total sleep but at times that repeatedly conflict with the body's circadian system, while another person may simply have too little opportunity to sleep because of work, commuting, caregiving or late-night routines.

Evidence-based Lifestyle Medicine should therefore not treat sleep as a generic instruction to “sleep more.” Healthy sleep involves adequate duration, good quality, appropriate timing, regularity and the absence or appropriate treatment of sleep disorders. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine explicitly identifies these dimensions as components of healthy sleep.

The 2025 Lifestyle Medicine Core Competencies take a similarly clinical approach. They expect practitioners to assess insufficient or poor-quality sleep, understand lifestyle-based interventions, recognize the risk of obstructive sleep apnea, chronic insomnia and restless legs syndrome, and understand when referral for a sleep study, sleep specialist or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia may be appropriate.

This distinction matters. Lifestyle Medicine should help people achieve healthier sleep, but it should not turn a potentially important sleep disorder into another lifestyle problem that patients are expected to solve by themselves.

Healthy sleep is more than a number of hours

For healthy adults, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society recommend seven or more hours of sleep per night on a regular basis to support optimal health and daytime functioning. Individual sleep requirements vary, and sleeping longer may be appropriate in some circumstances, including recovery from sleep debt or illness.

Regularity matters as well. Sleeping five hours on most workdays and attempting to compensate with very long sleep on weekends is not necessarily equivalent to obtaining adequate sleep consistently. Large variations in sleep and wake times may also disrupt circadian timing.

Duration alone is not enough to determine whether sleep is healthy. Someone who sleeps for seven or eight hours but wakes repeatedly, struggles to breathe during sleep or remains excessively sleepy during the day may still have clinically important sleep disturbance. A useful sleep assessment therefore considers not only how long someone sleeps, but when they sleep, how regular the schedule is, how easily they fall and remain asleep, whether sleep feels restorative, and whether symptoms such as excessive sleepiness, loud snoring, gasping or witnessed breathing pauses are present.

Sleep problems are relevant in Viet Nam, but population data remain limited

Compared with conditions such as hypertension, tobacco use or physical inactivity, Viet Nam still has relatively limited nationally representative epidemiological data on sleep health. Existing research nevertheless suggests that insomnia, poor sleep quality and obstructive sleep apnea deserve considerably more clinical attention.

A large 2026 multi-region study surveyed 1,655 healthcare professionals across Viet Nam and found that 24.2% met International Classification of Sleep Disorders criteria for chronic insomnia. The criteria included difficulty initiating sleep, maintaining sleep or early-morning awakening, associated daytime impairment, symptoms on at least three nights per week for at least three months, and adequate opportunity for sleep. Tea or coffee consumption and alcohol use were among the factors associated with insomnia after adjustment.

This result should be interpreted carefully. The study involved healthcare professionals and used a convenience-based sampling approach, so the 24.2% figure should not be interpreted as the prevalence of chronic insomnia among all Vietnamese adults or even as a definitive prevalence estimate for the entire Vietnamese healthcare workforce.

Sleep problems have also been reported among medical students. A national cross-sectional study published in 2025 found poor sleep quality in 36.6% of 1,284 medical students recruited from 57 of 63 provinces. However, data were collected between 2019 and 2020 using convenience sampling, and the investigators explicitly cautioned that the findings should not be considered representative of all Vietnamese medical students. A separate study conducted among 577 medical students at the University of Danang in 2024 found poor sleep quality in 45.8%, with clinical-year students reporting poorer sleep than preclinical students.

Obstructive sleep apnea has also been studied in Viet Nam. A multicenter study published in 2018 received 667 valid questionnaires and performed nocturnal respiratory testing in 93 screen-positive participants. Based on its staged screening approach, the investigators estimated obstructive sleep apnea with an apnea-hypopnea index above 5 events per hour in 8.5% and above 15 events per hour in 5.2%. Because only people screening positive underwent confirmatory respiratory testing, these figures should not be treated as equivalent to a modern population-wide polysomnography survey.

More recently, the 2025 SOHEW multicenter study evaluated a guided, self-administered level-3 home sleep-testing model among healthcare professionals across Viet Nam. Participants at higher risk underwent respiratory polygraphy, demonstrating that home-based diagnostic pathways may help expand access to sleep assessment. Because the study used a risk-enriched occupational population and selective testing, however, its diagnostic yield should not be interpreted as population prevalence.

The most defensible conclusion is therefore not that Viet Nam has one established national sleep-disorder prevalence figure. It is that sleep problems are clinically important, while better population-level surveillance and diagnostic capacity are still needed.

Insufficient sleep and chronic insomnia are not the same problem

Someone who routinely goes to bed at 1:00 a.m., wakes at 6:00 a.m. for work and falls asleep quickly may simply be giving themselves too little opportunity to sleep. Their primary problem may be insufficient sleep.

Chronic insomnia is different. In adults, it generally involves difficulty initiating sleep, difficulty maintaining sleep or waking earlier than intended, together with associated daytime impairment, despite adequate opportunity for sleep. Chronicity generally requires symptoms on at least three nights per week for at least three months. These are also the criteria used in the recent Vietnamese PIHEP study.

The distinction changes management. If someone is sleeping only five hours because their schedule permits only five hours, protecting additional sleep opportunity may be central. If a person allows adequate time for sleep but repeatedly spends long periods awake in bed, simply telling them to “go to bed earlier” may make the problem worse.

Good Lifestyle Medicine therefore needs to identify which sleep problem is actually present before recommending an intervention.

Healthy sleep habits still matter

Many everyday behaviors can support healthier sleep. A reasonably regular sleep-wake schedule can help stabilize circadian rhythms, while a quiet, dark and comfortable sleep environment can reduce unnecessary disruption. Physical activity and appropriate exposure to natural light can support sleep-wake regulation, whereas caffeine, nicotine and alcohol may interfere with sleep, particularly when used close to bedtime.

Electronic devices deserve a balanced message. Bright light and stimulating activity late in the evening may delay sleep, while phones and other devices can also displace bedtime through entertainment, work or social media. A 2025 meta-analysis of 21 cohort studies involving more than 548,000 participants found that each additional hour of daily screen time was associated with shorter sleep duration and a higher likelihood of short sleep. These were observational associations, however, and should not be interpreted to mean that every form of screen use causes the same sleep effect in every person.

The practical objective is not to create another rigid set of rules that patients become anxious about following perfectly. For many people, sleep can be supported by protecting sufficient sleep opportunity, keeping a reasonably consistent schedule, managing caffeine and alcohol, remaining physically active, reducing unnecessary late-night stimulation and creating a sleep environment that works for them.

These measures are useful, but they should not be confused with treatment for chronic insomnia.

Sleep hygiene alone is not adequate treatment for chronic insomnia

People with persistent insomnia are frequently advised to avoid coffee, switch off their phone, take a warm shower or make the bedroom darker. These recommendations can be sensible components of healthy sleep practice, but sleep hygiene alone is not considered adequate evidence-based treatment for chronic insomnia disorder.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine strongly recommends multicomponent cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, commonly abbreviated as CBT-I, for adults with chronic insomnia. Its guideline specifically suggests against using sleep hygiene as a stand-alone treatment because it is less effective than established behavioral and psychological treatments.

CBT-I is not simply counseling someone to “think positively” about sleep. It is a structured, multicomponent treatment that commonly incorporates education about sleep regulation, stimulus control, sleep restriction or sleep compression, cognitive strategies and other behavioral techniques. Some components can also be used individually in appropriate cases.

This is an important boundary for Lifestyle Medicine. Someone with chronic insomnia may not need more sleep tips. They may need evidence-based treatment for insomnia.

Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is not simply stress management

Stress, anxiety and emotional health can contribute to sleep difficulty, but chronic insomnia can persist even after the original stressor has resolved.

Someone who initially slept poorly during a difficult period at work may gradually begin spending more time in bed, sleeping irregularly, worrying about sleep and trying increasingly hard to force sleep. These responses can help maintain insomnia even after the original problem improves.

CBT-I is designed to address these perpetuating mechanisms, which is why telling someone with established chronic insomnia simply to “relax more” may be inadequate.

The Lifestyle Medicine Core Competencies make this distinction explicitly: practitioners should understand general lifestyle-based sleep interventions while also recognizing chronic insomnia and knowing when referral for cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is appropriate.

Medication can have a role in chronic insomnia treatment

Lifestyle Medicine should not replace one extreme with another.

Because CBT-I is an evidence-based first-line behavioral treatment, it does not follow that all sleep medication is inappropriate. Pharmacological treatment can have a role for selected patients depending on symptom severity, comorbidities, previous treatment response, access to CBT-I, patient preference and the benefits and risks of the medicine being considered.

Some patients may benefit from CBT-I alone, some may require pharmacological treatment, and others need treatment of another medical or psychiatric condition contributing to their sleep difficulty.

The important principle is that persistent insomnia deserves assessment and an appropriate treatment strategy, rather than indefinite self-medication or repeated generic advice about sleep hygiene.

Snoring is common, but snoring is not a diagnosis

Obstructive sleep apnea is another area in which lifestyle advice can become dangerously incomplete.

Many people snore without having obstructive sleep apnea. However, loud habitual snoring, witnessed pauses in breathing, gasping or choking during sleep, excessive daytime sleepiness and other suggestive symptoms should raise clinical concern.

Obstructive sleep apnea occurs when the upper airway repeatedly narrows or closes during sleep, leading to reductions or interruptions in airflow, recurrent arousals and often intermittent reductions in oxygen.

Obesity is an important risk factor, but not everyone with obstructive sleep apnea has obesity. Age, craniofacial anatomy, upper-airway structure and other physiological factors also contribute. A person with a normal body weight who snores loudly and repeatedly stops breathing during sleep should not be reassured simply because they are thin.

A screening questionnaire cannot diagnose obstructive sleep apnea

Questionnaires such as STOP-Bang can help identify people who may be at higher risk of obstructive sleep apnea.

They do not establish the diagnosis.

American Academy of Sleep Medicine guidance specifically recommends that questionnaires, clinical tools and prediction algorithms not be used by themselves to diagnose obstructive sleep apnea. Objective testing is required in the appropriate clinical context.

Polysomnography remains the standard diagnostic test when obstructive sleep apnea is suspected. A technically adequate home sleep apnea test can also be appropriate for selected uncomplicated adults who have signs and symptoms suggesting an increased risk of moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea. If a single home test is negative, inconclusive or technically inadequate despite continued clinical suspicion, polysomnography is recommended. Certain patients, including those with significant cardiorespiratory disease, suspected hypoventilation, chronic opioid use, previous stroke or severe insomnia, generally require polysomnography rather than routine home testing.

The important distinction is simple: screening identifies risk; diagnostic testing establishes disease.

Consumer sleep devices can be useful, but they have limits

Wearable devices and sleep applications have become part of everyday health behavior. They can help some people recognize patterns in bedtime, sleep regularity or changes associated with work schedules, travel and other behaviors.

These devices should not be treated as equivalent to clinical sleep testing.

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has warned that consumer sleep technologies should not replace appropriate medical evaluation for sleep disorders. Its 2025 advisory regarding devices that self-assess obstructive sleep apnea risk also emphasizes that even devices cleared for risk assessment cannot independently diagnose sleep apnea or confirm that it is absent.

There is another limitation: excessive monitoring can sometimes increase anxiety about sleep. A person who repeatedly checks whether they achieved a “perfect” score may become more preoccupied with sleeping correctly, which can itself become counterproductive.

Sleep-tracking data may help inform a conversation, but the device should not become the diagnosis.

Lifestyle intervention has an important role in obstructive sleep apnea care

Lifestyle Medicine can contribute substantially to obstructive sleep apnea management, particularly when overweight or obesity is present.

The American Thoracic Society recommends comprehensive weight-management intervention for adults with obstructive sleep apnea who have overweight or obesity, incorporating appropriate nutritional change, physical activity and behavioral support. Weight reduction can improve obstructive sleep apnea severity as well as cardiometabolic health and quality of life.

Weight reduction should not, however, be presented as a universal cure.

Positive airway pressure remains a central evidence-based treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. Other options may be appropriate for selected patients. Custom, titratable oral appliances can be considered for some adults, particularly those who are intolerant of continuous positive airway pressure or prefer an alternative, with appropriate professional assessment and follow-up testing.

Surgical consultation may also be appropriate in selected patients. The 2021 American Academy of Sleep Medicine guideline recommends discussion of referral to a sleep surgeon for certain adults who are intolerant or unaccepting of positive airway pressure and provides separate recommendations concerning bariatric surgical referral in some patients with obesity.

Lifestyle intervention therefore belongs inside comprehensive obstructive sleep apnea care, not instead of it.

Weight loss does not mean positive airway pressure should be stopped automatically

Substantial weight reduction through lifestyle intervention, obesity pharmacotherapy or metabolic and bariatric surgery can improve obstructive sleep apnea in some patients. It does not prove that the disorder has disappeared.

A person using continuous positive airway pressure should therefore not stop treatment simply because symptoms improve, body weight falls or a wearable device reports better sleep.

Major changes in treatment should be based on appropriate clinical reassessment and, when indicated, objective sleep testing.

Lifestyle Medicine can change the patient's underlying risk profile, but it does not replace objective reassessment when important treatment decisions are being considered.

Sleep connects obesity, hypertension, diabetes and other Lifestyle Medicine domains

Sleep is often presented as a separate Lifestyle Medicine pillar, but the pillars interact in clinical practice.

Obstructive sleep apnea frequently coexists with hypertension and obesity. Sleep fragmentation and daytime fatigue can make physical activity more difficult. Inadequate sleep may influence mood, appetite and behavior. Alcohol can worsen upper-airway obstruction in susceptible individuals, while weight gain can increase obstructive sleep apnea risk.

This creates an important clinical lesson: sometimes the reason a patient is struggling with another Lifestyle Medicine goal is that an untreated sleep problem is making change substantially harder.

A patient who remains exhausted despite repeated exercise counseling may not need another motivational message.

They may need their sleep evaluated.

Shift work changes what healthy sleep advice looks like

Advice such as “go to sleep at the same time every night” is easier to follow for some people than for others.

Healthcare workers, factory workers, transportation workers, hospitality staff, security personnel and many others work overnight or rotating shifts. Parents and caregivers may also experience repeated sleep disruption that cannot simply be removed.

For shift workers, insufficient sleep may be combined with circadian misalignment. Practical strategies can include protecting adequate sleep opportunity, limiting unnecessary schedule changes when possible, using light strategically, restricting caffeine to earlier portions of the work period and reducing light and noise during daytime sleep.

These strategies do not eliminate the potential effects of difficult work schedules, and workers may have limited control over their rosters.

This makes occupational context part of sleep health.

The 2026 PIHEP study is especially relevant in this respect because it demonstrates a substantial insomnia burden among surveyed healthcare professionals in Viet Nam, although its cross-sectional design cannot establish that shift work or occupational stress caused the insomnia observed.

Telling a night-shift worker simply to “sleep at night” is not individualized care.

Sleep should be assessed together with caffeine, alcohol, tobacco and medications

Sleep behavior does not exist separately from the rest of Lifestyle Medicine.

Caffeine can delay sleep and remain physiologically active for hours. Nicotine is stimulating. Alcohol may make some people feel sleepy initially while contributing to more fragmented sleep later. Prescription and non-prescription medications can also affect sleep or daytime alertness.

This is why a bedtime routine alone may miss the real problem. Someone using strong coffee late in the day because they are chronically sleep deprived can enter a cycle in which insufficient sleep increases caffeine use and caffeine then makes subsequent sleep more difficult.

Likewise, using alcohol as a sleep aid may create the impression that sleep onset is improving while overall sleep quality becomes poorer.

A useful clinical sleep assessment therefore asks not only about bedtime and wake time but also about substances, medications and the behaviors a person is using to manage fatigue or sleep difficulty.

Social conditions influence whether healthy sleep is achievable

Healthy sleep requires both time and an environment in which sleep is possible.

Long working hours, commuting, multiple jobs, childcare, elder care, crowded housing, noise, light, heat and financial pressure can all reduce sleep opportunity or quality. Someone may understand every sleep-health recommendation and still have limited control over these conditions.

This does not mean clinicians should ignore sleep when the barrier appears social. It means the intervention should match the problem.

One person may benefit from moving caffeine earlier in the day. Another needs evaluation for chronic insomnia. A shift worker may require a circadian strategy, while someone sleeping in a noisy household may benefit more from practical environmental changes than another lecture about bedtime consistency.

Lifestyle Medicine becomes more useful when it asks:

What is preventing healthy sleep in this person's actual life?

Insomnia and mental health frequently overlap, but they are not identical

Insomnia is closely associated with depression, anxiety and psychological distress. The relationship can work in both directions: mental health conditions can interfere with sleep, while persistent insomnia can worsen emotional wellbeing, daytime functioning and quality of life.

Clinicians should therefore consider mental health when it is clinically relevant.

At the same time, chronic insomnia should not automatically be treated as merely a symptom of anxiety or stress that will disappear when the psychological problem improves. Insomnia can become an independent treatment target.

The patient may need treatment for insomnia, a mental health condition, or both.

Professional boundaries matter in sleep-related Lifestyle Medicine

General sleep education can appropriately occur in many settings. Schools, workplaces, public-health programs and community organizations can promote adequate sleep opportunity, regular schedules and environments that support healthier sleep.

Clinical sleep care is different.

Under Viet Nam's Law on Medical Examination and Treatment, medical examination involves the use of professional knowledge, methods and techniques to assess a person's health status, health risks and healthcare needs, while treatment involves professional activities used to address disease or prevent its occurrence or progression. The currently consolidated law is Document No. 26/VBHN-VPQH dated February 26, 2026.

Clinical evaluation and diagnosis of chronic insomnia or obstructive sleep apnea, prescribing medication and making disease-specific treatment decisions therefore fall within regulated healthcare practice.

Behavioral treatment also requires appropriate competence. Viet Nam recognizes clinical psychology as a professional title within the practising-licence framework, and Circular No. 32/2023/TT-BYT provides a professional scope that includes psychological assessment and psychological interventions within healthcare facilities.

This should not be interpreted to mean that CBT-I is legally reserved exclusively to clinical psychologists. The appropriate professional depends on the nature of the intervention, the practitioner's qualifications and authorized professional scope, and the healthcare setting. What matters is that clinical interventions are provided by appropriately trained professionals acting within their competence and lawful scope.

An international sleep-coaching certificate, Lifestyle Medicine certificate or short training course does not by itself create authority to diagnose or treat a sleep disorder in Viet Nam.

Sleep medicine capacity is expanding in Viet Nam

Sleep medicine is becoming more established in Viet Nam.

The Vietnam Society of Sleep Medicine was established in December 2019 and has developed professional, educational and research activities in areas including polysomnography, obstructive sleep apnea, insomnia and other sleep disorders.

In 2023, a steering committee of the Society published Summarized Vietnamese Guidelines for Diagnosis and Treatment of Adults with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. These provide a useful Vietnamese professional reference but should be distinguished from statutory regulation or a Ministry of Health clinical guideline.

More recent Vietnamese studies, including multicenter work on home sleep testing and insomnia among healthcare professionals, also demonstrate growing local research and diagnostic capacity.

For Lifestyle Medicine, this development creates an opportunity for collaboration. Practitioners need to recognize when a person can benefit from healthier sleep behaviors and when a sleep-medicine diagnostic or treatment pathway is required.

What should a good Lifestyle Medicine sleep assessment include?

A sleep assessment does not need to become the longest questionnaire in the medical record. It should identify the type of problem that needs to be addressed.

Useful areas include sleep duration, including whether enough time is being allowed for sleep; timing and regularity, including differences between workdays and weekends; sleep continuity, including difficulty falling or remaining asleep; and daytime function, including fatigue, impaired concentration or excessive sleepiness.

Assessment should also consider symptoms suggesting sleep-disordered breathing, such as habitual loud snoring, witnessed apnea, choking or gasping. Shift work and other circadian factors matter, as do caffeine, nicotine, alcohol and medications. Symptoms suggesting restless legs syndrome, parasomnias or other sleep disorders may require a different diagnostic pathway.

A sleep diary can sometimes help clarify timing, duration and patterns before more specialized assessment is undertaken.

The objective is not to collect sleep data for its own sake.

It is to determine what kind of sleep problem the person has and what the next appropriate step should be.

What should happen after the assessment?

The intervention should follow the problem.

Someone who consistently allows too little time for sleep may need help protecting sleep opportunity and changing evening routines or work-family patterns.

A person with irregular sleep timing may benefit from more consistent sleep-wake scheduling and appropriate management of light exposure.

Someone with occasional mild sleep difficulty may benefit from healthy sleep practices, physical activity, stress management and review of caffeine or alcohol.

A patient who meets criteria for chronic insomnia should be considered for evidence-based insomnia treatment rather than sleep hygiene alone.

Someone with loud habitual snoring, witnessed breathing pauses, gasping or excessive daytime sleepiness may need objective assessment for obstructive sleep apnea.

Restless legs symptoms, unusual movements or behaviors during sleep, unexplained severe daytime sleepiness or other atypical features may require a different clinical pathway.

Lifestyle Medicine works best when the intervention is selected according to the sleep problem rather than forcing every complaint into the same list of lifestyle recommendations.

What does this mean for Viet Nam?

Sleep is particularly relevant to the development of Lifestyle Medicine in Viet Nam because it interacts with almost every other major lifestyle domain.

Poor sleep can make physical activity more difficult, affect appetite and food choices, reduce stress tolerance and complicate chronic disease self-management. At the same time, obesity, alcohol use, working patterns, mental health and cardiometabolic disease can all influence sleep.

Sleep care can therefore become an important bridge between Lifestyle Medicine, primary care, respiratory medicine, cardiology, endocrinology, mental health and occupational health.

That potential depends on using the right clinical model.

Lifestyle Medicine should encourage people to protect sufficient sleep, maintain healthier routines, manage caffeine and alcohol appropriately, remain physically active and create environments that support sleep. It should also teach healthcare professionals to recognize when those strategies are not enough.

A patient with chronic insomnia needs more than a list of sleep tips. Someone who repeatedly stops breathing during sleep needs more than weight-loss advice. A shift worker cannot necessarily follow the same sleep schedule as an office worker, and a smartwatch cannot rule out obstructive sleep apnea.

For Viet Nam, the opportunity is therefore not merely to promote “better sleep.” It is to build a more clinically mature approach in which healthy sleep behavior, recognition of sleep disorders, appropriate diagnostic testing, referral and evidence-based treatment are connected rather than separated.

Sleep is a Lifestyle Medicine pillar, but sleep disorders remain medical disorders

Lifestyle has a profound influence on sleep. Regular routines, physical activity, light exposure, caffeine, alcohol, stress and the sleeping environment all matter, and improving these factors can meaningfully improve sleep health.

But sleep disorders do not stop being medical disorders because lifestyle factors are involved.

Chronic insomnia should not be reduced to poor sleep hygiene. Obstructive sleep apnea should not be reduced to obesity or snoring. Insufficient sleep caused by shift work, caregiving or social conditions should not automatically be interpreted as poor discipline.

Good Lifestyle Medicine first asks what kind of sleep problem the person actually has, then uses the appropriate combination of behavior change, clinical treatment, diagnostic testing, referral and follow-up.

The most useful question is therefore not simply:

“How many hours did you sleep last night?”

It is:

“Is this person getting sufficient, restorative and appropriately timed sleep, and if not, what is preventing it?”

That is what turns sleep advice into evidence-based Lifestyle Medicine.

References

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This article is intended for professional education and general information. It does not provide individualized medical or psychological advice and should not be used to diagnose or treat insomnia, obstructive sleep apnea or another sleep disorder. Clinical sleep assessment, diagnostic testing, prescription treatment and formal behavioral or psychological interventions should be provided by appropriately trained professionals acting within their competence, authorized professional scope and the applicable Vietnamese healthcare framework.

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