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It is well known that good rest is key to health and that sleeping badly has physical, psychological and emotional consequences.
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The recommended hours ideal is always eight. And it has an explanation.
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“It is proven that sleeping less than seven hours a day decreases life expectancy and strikingly, the same happens with those who do it for more than nine hours. The ideal range of rest time in adults is just between seven and nine hours, no more, no less. ” As explained by the pulmonologist, Juan Facundo Nogueira (MN 84.970), “in this way, the brain can recover during sleep, the muscle uses to accumulate energy, the entire cardiovascular system enters a state of rest that allows it to wear less and this increases the survival time ”.
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For the coordinator of the Finochietto Sanatorium Sleep Laboratory, “The most notorious has to do with the psyche, the brain and intellectual performance”. “If we sleep little, we will be tired during the day, with less attention span, concentration and that generates less intellectual, labor, educational, and memory loss. Also, there is less ability to detect what is happening around and that reduces effectiveness when doing precision tasks, something that may have to do with work or recreation, we are slowed, ”said the specialist.
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And he added: “On the contrary, when you sleep more than nine hours, it does not have to do with the fact that the sleep is harmful but it is because the person can suffer from a neurological disorder, they are patients with depression, some chronic illness, heart failure or a certain problem that makes them very sleepy during the day ”.
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Attention with snoring and sleep apnea
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Sleep apnea (when breathing stops and restarts repeatedly) and snoring are two phenomena that are related to airway obstruction and have to do with a greater or lesser degree of obstruction. “Snoring must be fought because it is annoying for oneself and for a third party, but it is important to rule out that the person does not suffer from sleep apnea when snoring because it is something that can be very frequent“, Said the specialist, and exemplified:” There are patients who have 30, 40 or 100 apnea per hour. That lowers the oxygen in the blood, suffers the heart, the brain, and could increase the possibility of suffering heart attacks, hypertension, diabetes, among other problems.
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How to tell if someone has sleep apnea
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– Intense snoring already represents an alert signal. In that case, the roommate should be consulted, if in addition to snoring, breathing pauses are made.
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– If the person wakes up because of his snoring or because he drowns.
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– If you sleep eight hours and get up tired or sleepy, it is an indicator that you are sleeping badly.
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– Overweight is a risk factor for sleep apnea and also if the person has high blood pressure or diabetes.
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“Today we do sleep studies with portable equipment in the patient’s home, with minimal invasion. It is the easiest way to study and as reliable as the classic studies we do in the sleep laboratory, ”said Nogueira, who stressed:“ It is important that the population knows more about their health so that they can acquire preventive behaviors that help them live better”.
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Recommendations to help you sleep better
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1- The key is in the organization: try to go to bed and get up every day at the same time. The organism is a very well calibrated “device” and needs that regularity to function properly.
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2- There is an ideal schedule of physical activity: doing intense sports before bedtime leaves us very excited, with high temperature, with many blood endorphins and that makes it very difficult to quickly fall asleep. So, you have to try keep the exercise from resting hours, at least three or four hours is recommended, unless they are activities that help you relax like elongation or yoga.
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3- Food: the digestive process raises body temperature, increases heart rate and the risk of reflux, so it is suggested have dinner an hour and a half or two before going to sleep.
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4- Avoid using screens: the intense light stimulates the brain, which interprets that it is still daytime and that it has to stay awake, so it will be more difficult than falling asleep, especially if the person suffers from insomnia. Ideally, read a book (printed), with a dim light, take a hot shower that triggers certain mechanisms that lead us to sleep or implement some relaxation therapy such as yoga or mindfulness.
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5- Do not use radio or television as background sound when sleeping, since that disturbs the brain and produces “micro-awakenings”, that is, very short awakenings that the person does not get to perceive but they interrupt the architecture of the dream, which loses efficiency and the deepest stages of the same.
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6- Take care of silence, darkness and temperature: Ideally, sleep in silence, in darkness, with a moderate ambient temperature of 24 or 25 degrees, in a comfortable position, with loose clothing, so that nothing creates an external discomfort.
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