The majority of young Spaniards consider that sleep is as important as diet or physical exercise for their well-being. However, their daily habits do not seem to conform to this premise, because six out of ten take away sleep time for leisure or other activities that they do not have time to do during the day. And eight out of ten take their computer or mobile phone to bed and consume more than an hour from the time they go to bed until they fall asleep browsing the screens.
The consequence of these and other habits is that more than 80% of Spaniards between 18 and 34 report sleeping problems and, as a result, drowsiness or tiredness during the day, and 13% meet the medical criteria to be diagnosed with a chronic insomnia disorder.
There is another 7% who have symptoms of delayed sleep phase (that is, if they are allowed to sleep when they want, they sleep well but if they have to comply with fixed schedules they have problems) and almost 4% who meet the diagnostic requirements of the insufficient sleep syndrome (you sleep less than you need and then feel sleepy during the day or have trouble getting up). 11% confess to snoring or having apneas, and 2% explain symptoms that suggest obstructive sleep apnea.
This is, broadly speaking, the x-ray of how young Spaniards sleep that emerges from the study carried out by specialists from the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) and the Spanish Sleep Society (SES) for the Mapfre Foundation on a sample of 3,405 young people between 18 and 34 years old.
“The majority of young people consider that sleep is important but only 24% admit to sleeping well and enough; and although on average they sleep 7.35 hours during the week and 8.8 on the eve of a day off, there is a third who always sleep less than 7 hours, which is the minimum recommended time in this age group,” explained Dr. Marta Rubio, neurologist at the Parc Taulí hospital in Sabadell and principal investigator of the study when presenting her conclusions.
Rubio explained that a significant part of young people (61%) consciously and voluntarily subtract hours of sleep in order to be able to do other activities, a behavior that is observed especially in younger men, between 18 and 29 years old. One of the reasons is the lack of self-control in the face of the high offer of digital leisure, but work hours, stress or the fact of having an evening chronotype also influence.
Researchers have also detected that there is a difference between the time they go to bed and the time they fall asleep, which on average is around 60 minutes but in a third of those surveyed it far exceeds an hour. And for the vast majority, that time is linked to taking screens to bed. “Women look at them more before falling asleep, and men when they wake up at night,” noted Dr. Rubio.
When asked about their lifestyle habits, 44% of young people explain that at night they do household chores that they have not been able to do during the day, 14% say they work and 20% study. And among those who have children, more than half confess to having fragmented sleep due to their care.
Other circumstances that do not contribute to the good rest of the young people surveyed are that a third have irregular schedules or rotating work shifts and 23% say they do not have enough time to sleep, percentages that are higher in the older group, starting of the 30s.
Other habits that specialists consider related to poor sleep among young Spaniards is the high percentage who consume coffee daily (six out of ten) and who claim to do so to stay awake; that 39% consume alcohol at least once a month and 10% of them say they do it to fall asleep; that 63% of those who use cannabis at least once a month (8%) use it as a sleep aid.
Added to this is that 9% of those under 35 take sleeping drugs (prescription hypnotics) regularly and 15% take melatonin or some herbal preparation occasionally.
And although practically two out of three say that their mental state is good or very good, the majority confess to having suffered from stress or discouragement in the last month and 29% declare having a mental health problem diagnosed by their doctor, a percentage that is higher in the case of women and the younger group.
In this younger age group, under 23 years of age, specialists have detected worse sleeping habits due to greater abuse of screens, greater job insecurity, more stress and more discouragement linked to studies, more impulsivity and consumption of poisons and more accidents related to lack of sleep.
Because another of the data that the Mapfre Foundation study has revealed is that 15% of the young people surveyed have had a traffic accident due to lack of sleep, a percentage that rises among younger men and among those who only suffer from sleep. .
