“Just as if you don’t eat, you die, if you don’t sleep in the long term it’s the same.” It is the advice and at the same time warning from the neurophysiologist and coordinator of the Spanish Sleep Society Ana Teijeira (Toledo, 1980) to highlight the importance of sleep to live… or to live better. And it’s not worth counting nap time. The neurophysiologist points out that there is a minimum number of hours of sleep necessary but at the same time it can be counterproductive to spend it sleeping. She emphasizes the importance of children doing most of their activities with natural light during the day and warns of the problem that using screens before going to sleep can pose for teenagers.
How do we sleep in Spain?
Acceptably good. But adolescents and adults have a deficit of hours of sleep.
What is the minimum number of hours you should sleep?
It varies according to age. For an adult to not have sleep debt, they should sleep approximately eight hours. Never less than seven.
¿Teenagers?
One more hour: nine.
And kids?
Up to five years old between 10 and 13 hours. And until 12 about eleven hours.
What does not sleeping properly mean for your health?
Sleeping not only serves to consolidate memory or eliminate toxins in the brain. Sleep regulates a lot of factors in the body, systemic functions such as the cardiovascular system, the hormonal system, the defense system… If there is poor quality sleep, it will alter these types of functionalities. And it can cause long-term illnesses.
What kind of diseases?
Chronically little or bad sleep can favor the development of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and can also favor cerebrovascular events such as strokes or cardiovascular events such as heart attacks. By altering the defense system, it can favor certain types of cancer in the long term. And we know that sleeping less than six and a half hours chronically increases the possibility of dying sooner. Sleeping is a fundamental vital function but sometimes we do not give it the importance it has.
What is better: six hours of continuous sleep or eight with awakenings?
Neither of the two things is better. It is true that we prefer continuous sleep to fragmented sleep because the next day it causes a significant feeling of tiredness and favors other types of illnesses. But insufficient sleep, too.
Sleep just over six hours and take a nap for one addition to the final count?
No. The hours of sleep at night are essential because they are the ones that synchronize with our biorhythms. Napping has to be seen as a complement, especially for children and older people. But it will never replace sleep at night. And a nap should never exceed 20 minutes. If we sleep more there is a high risk of falling into a deep sleep and generating a paradoxical effect: feeling tired and wanting to sleep more.
Is there a maximum number of hours of sleep that should not be exceeded?
As adults we know that sleeping more than 10 and a half hours is not normal. At the level of cardiovascular risk factors, not only is it bad to sleep too little, but it can be bad to sleep too much.
Because?
You can have obstructive sleep apnea or diseases such as narcolepsy… And people who chronically sleep a lot may in the long run have greater cardiovascular risk factors. Sleeping a lot is a sign that something is happening. There may be an underlying sleep disorder or one that causes hypersomnia or excessive sleepiness, as sometimes occurs in depressive disorders or hypothyroidism. A person who sleeps excessively should always be studied.
What do we do if we wake up and can’t go back to sleep?
Don’t stay awake in bed. You have to do relaxed activities like what you did before going to bed: read a book, drink an infusion trying to keep your mind a little distracted so as not to overwhelm you and when drowsiness arises a little, go back to bed.
Stress and mental health are increasingly common and affect sleep. Are you answering more questions?
Yes. There is a bidirectional relationship between alterations in mood, whether anxiety or depressive symptoms, and poor sleep quality or insomnia. And it is a problem because a kind of vicious circle is formed. The less or worse I sleep, the more irritable or anxious I am the next day, and the more anxiety I have, the harder it is for me to sleep at night.
When should you go to the doctor?
When on a regular basis I start to notice that I have poor quality sleep, that I am not getting enough sleep. When there is something that is causing a disturbance in my sleep. Or if I have an excess of nightmares without knowing why. Or if I move around excessively in bed and that makes me feel very tired the next day. If I snore and they tell me that I stand still without breathing. Or when I think I’m sleeping poorly and the next day I’m excessively tired, sleepy, or have concentration and memory problems that I think come from sleeping poorly.
Who does the assessment?
The first and most important thing, if there are suspicions, should be done by the family doctor. It can treat simple sleep disorders, acute insomnia or some other problem that does not cause a serious impact on the patient’s quality of life. But if more serious or chronic diseases are suspected, a referral should be made to specialized sleep units.
Specialists talk about sleep hygiene measures. What are they?
Those that we try to apply both during the day and at night to promote proper rest. Regularity of schedules, which is very important so that our circadian rhythm, the clock that will set us to sleep, works well. You should also avoid doing intense physical or cognitive activities two or three hours before going to sleep, such as studying or working. The two hours before going to bed we should try to be more relaxed, with less intense light, have soft dinners… All of this will promote relaxation and the brain will understand that it is time to sleep. If I exercise and then use my phone at 11:30 in bed, this will greatly disrupt the onset of sleep.
Are there foods that are prohibited and also indicated?
The most important thing is a heart-healthy diet. The Mediterranean diet is very suitable. You should always have dinner a couple of hours before going to bed to allow for proper digestion. It is very important that dinners do not have excess fat, spice or acid, something that can make us feel bad and even cause reflux. And we always think of coffee as a stimulating drink, but cocoa is too. You should avoid an ounce of chocolate at night. And nicotine. On the contrary, there are foods, such as bananas, that contain tryptophan that can promote the formation of substances in the brain that promote sleep.
There are those who take medication to be able to sleep. Should it be the last option?
Yes… We are the country that consumes the most hypnotics worldwide. Pharmacological treatments must be prescribed by a professional and the lowest possible dose must be given in the shortest possible time because these medications are not free of side effects that can alter memory, cause drowsiness the next day and promote accidents.
Screens and sleep are enemies. Can we apply it to the series before going to sleep?
The problem with screens depends on the distance with which we use it on the face because they have very powerful lighting that does not favor the release of substances such as melatonin at the brain level, which are a bit like indicators that the process is going to start. dream. And if I have overexposure to light like that from screens, my brain understands that it is daytime. With series, one of the problems is that when we are watching one that engages us a lot or a movie that generates a little stress in us, we have brain activation because we are very connected to that series, the head is very active. Reading, which is also a cognitive process, is much more relaxed. It is done with a light that goes to the book and not to the eyes, I am in a moment of greater relaxation and generally it is a type of activity that can better promote sleep.
The use of screens in adolescents is something that is worrying because in many cases it is the last thing they do.
We know that there is a very high percentage of adolescents who use screens in bed before falling asleep. Even with all the lights off, they put their cell phone very close to their face. And that intensity of light is going to make it very difficult for them to start sleeping. There is also a high percentage of adolescents who sleep with their cell phone under their pillow and are woken up by social media alarms, causing sleep disruption. This worries us a lot. We adults have to set an example.
What are the repercussions of not getting enough sleep for a teenager?
It has a very important impact on your quality of life. A decrease in sleep hours can cause problems when it comes to memory consolidation. You will have problems when studying and academic performance may worsen. This is obviously going to cause more anxiety and that anxiety is going to generate that vicious circle of me sleeping worse because I have anxiety. They are getting into a problem that can end up developing a sleep disease such as technological insomnia.
Technological insomnia?
Yes, it is a concept that does not exist in sleep classifications but that we use a lot when talking about insomnia derived from chronic misuse of screens throughout the night.
Is the recommendation to keep your cell phone out of the room at bedtime?
Would be ideal. In fact, the ideal would be to eliminate all screen use two hours before going to bed. We must try to avoid the habit that more and more kids have of making their cell phone the last tool they use before going to bed.
