Recovering from everyday stress sleeps better – This is how you recognize your own need for sleep – 2024-03-07 14:39:14

Jenni Gästgivar, Jesse Järvisalo, Karoliina Vuorenmäki

During sleep, many things happen in the body for health and endurance: the brain is cleaned, the connections between nerve cells are maintained and the defense against various pathogens is strengthened. In adults, new neurons can also be born during sleep, especially in areas important for memory.

– The energy supply of the brain is also emphasized during sleep, it is a necessary thing for humans, states the chief physician of the pension insurance company Ilmarinen, a neurologist Maija Haanpää.

Research professor at the Department of Health and Welfare, psychiatrist Timo Partosen however, sleep can be easily disturbed.

– Any burden brings with it difficulty falling asleep or sleep starts to be interrupted too much.

Partonen and Haanpää discussed the meaning of sleep in the Today at work podcast.

Rushing, actively working until the evening or making the most of your free time and demanding a lot from yourself are actions that are harmful to sleep, according to Partonen.

– A person cannot force himself to fall asleep.

Many people sleep badly

The number of people of working age who sleep poorly in the short term is estimated to be large. According to THL, about one in three temporarily sleeps worse than they would like. About ten percent of adults suffer from long-lasting sleep disorders.

According to Partonen, the need for sleep is individual and if your own need for sleep is nine hours, you should also sleep it every night. You can recognize your need, for example, by waking up refreshed and naturally in the morning and staying refreshed the next day.

A bad night’s sleep or low-quality sleep causes not only fatigue during the day, but also a decrease in performance. The mood can be irritable, even quarrelsome.

Service Selection Council Palko recommends cognitive therapy, i.e. behavioral therapy, as a treatment for long-term insomnia.

– It involves, for example, stimulus control, i.e. not going to bed too excited, but coming out and going only when we are tired. It also involves anchoring sleep, i.e. keeping the wake-up time always the same, Partonen explains.

The beginning of the week is the hardest

On the night between Sunday and Monday, many sleep worse than usual. Partonen estimates that the pressures of the starting work week, for example something negative at work, delay the onset of sleep. According to Haanpää, it could be a mismatch between the perceived level of requirements and one’s own abilities.

– If on Monday you feel that you are too strong, you won’t sleep well the night before.

– It is also worth considering how relaxing the days have been before, whether you have recovered from the stresses of the previous week. If so, the starting point for the night before Monday is better, says Partonen.

Another phenomenon that is often associated with leadership is the need for very little sleep at night. You can sometimes read in the media that a top leader gets by with three to four hours of sleep a night. What is it about?

– It’s definitely a myth. Of course, there can be short-sleepers and there are, but you shouldn’t demand that from your employees, says Partonen.

– If there are managers who sleep nine hours a night, and try to reduce their sleep, it is not a good company, Haanpää says.

The story was first published in Mediuutis.

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