Lack of sleep: what are the consequences on health?
Repeated lack of sleep can have harmful consequences on the health and proper functioning of the body:
• Weight gain;
• Diabetes ;
• High blood pressure;
• Accentuation of chronic pain;
• Depression and anxiety;
• Worsening of respiratory and cardiovascular disorders;
• Drowsiness while driving (leading cause of accidents on motorways) or at work;
• Performance drops;
• Difficulty concentrating and memorizing;
• Irascibility…
Sleep is in fact an essential physiological activity for maintaining good health and promoting healthy aging because we draw our energy from it to recover our physical and psychological capacities. Sleep is also a privileged time for building immunity.
How to adopt good sleep hygiene?
With the Doctor, Nicolas Juenet, psychiatrist and sleep doctor, Deputy Medical Director for the group emeis responsible for Psychiatry and Sleep Medicine, let’s discover the mechanisms of sleep and learn how to adopt good sleep hygiene.
1. Understand the complexity of sleep to know how to take care of it
The first thing to understand is that sleep is not a simple state of rest and is made up of several phases. When we look at a hypnogram (the chart of your night), we observe different stages of sleep: light slow-wave sleep, deep slow-wave sleep or even paradoxical sleep, which themselves are grouped into cycles at a rate of four to six cycles per night .
On average, a night consists of 50% light sleep, a quarter of REM sleep and a quarter of deep sleep. These stages all have their importance, contrary to what one might believe and contrary to what one sometimes reads, with a hierarchy of appearance.
Within mental health clinics emeishealth professionals raise awareness of the fact that as soon as we see an anomaly in this distribution of stages, or in their appearance or non-appearance, then we are confronted with a sleep anomaly, and even with anomalies of the entire organism, more generally.
2. Take into account sleep regulation mechanisms
Sleep regulation mechanisms are also essential to take into account. Indeed, we often tend to think that it is above all fatigue that allows us to sleep. It is true that fatigue is an important regulator of sleep: “I go to sleep in particular because I have accumulated fatigue throughout the day”.
But in reality, fatigue mechanics is only a secondary regulator.
The main mechanism regulating sleep is the biological clock or circadian clock. The biological clock plays a real role as conductor for the entire body by distributing tasks throughout the day and also regulating what we call vigilance according to the day/night alternation. For example, the biological clock will ensure that our blood pressure or our body temperature is a little higher during the day than at night. And this circadian clock is mainly influenced by external light, which explains why we attach a lot of importance to light exposure in sleep hygiene advice.
Sleep and alertness: stimulation of the biological clock
In the morning, we will observe a stimulation of alertness, then a decrease in alertness at the beginning of the afternoon. Contrary to popular belief, this has nothing to do with digestion but is linked to a reduction in the stimulation of the biological clock and then again a very important stimulation for the rest of the afternoon.
It is in the middle of the night, particularly between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., that the biological clock will control the most powerful sleep mechanisms which will allow us to have the best quality sleep possible.
This is why, at emeisthe management of a patient who presents sleep disorders is accompanied by therapies which aim to resynchronize the biological clock by regulating the wake/sleep rhythm. Non-drug therapies such as cognitive-behavioral therapies or light therapy can act positively in this direction.
3. Understand that sleep is above all personal
Sleep is very personal; our biological clock responds to genetic information. We will thus distinguish:
• Short and long sleepers (people who can get by with 6 hours of sleep per night and others who need 9 hours);
• So-called chronorigid people who experience the slightest change in their usual sleep schedule extremely poorly; and conversely, chronoflexibles capable of constantly changing their sleep schedules by adapting immediately;
• Sleep chronotypes: we observe people who are more morning people (who spontaneously get up very early but do not last very late in the evening) and conversely others who have great difficulty falling asleep early in the evening and will rise with difficulty in the morning.
4. Recognize that sleep changes with age
Sleep physiology is strongly dependent on age, although total sleep time decreases only slightly as we age. As we age, the sleep phases shift: we observe a tendency to fall asleep earlier… and wake up earlier. We also lose the main markers of sleep, such as the absence of schedules imposed by work. The reduction in physical and intellectual activity can also lead to “desynchronization” of the subject.
Finally, we observe a lengthening of the period necessary to fall asleep and a fragmentation of sleep. Awakenings last longer, and getting back to sleep takes longer. This loss of deep restorative sleep and the increase in the number of waking phases promote sleepiness during the day and undoubtedly explain the impression of elderly subjects that they sleep little. Furthermore, we note a greater ease of waking up in elderly people than in young people, sleep being lighter and more sensitive to noise.
How to sleep better? The advice ofemeis
Given this complexity of sleep, medicine is currently not capable of making you “artificially” reproduce very good quality sleep. Thus, you must respect all the processes of regulation and fragility of sleep, but also your personal preferences and requirements to take better care of your nights.
We will therefore not give the same sleep hygiene advice to so-called morning and evening subjects.
Sleep: when and for how long?
• To get good sleep, have better nights, and therefore better days, start by giving yourself enough sleep time. Get enough sleep according to your personal characteristics… but not too much either! Spending too much time in bed causes sleep to deteriorate and become fragmented.
• Don’t let the sleep train pass you by: go to bed when you feel sleepy and respect your cycle (small or heavy sleeper; early riser or late riser).
• Ideally, sleep during natural darkness, therefore at night, and particularly during the interval 1 hour to 5 hours.
• If possible, avoid changing your bedtime and waking up time too often, especially between the week and the weekend.
We recommend not shifting your waking hours by more than one hour between weekends and work days.
Napping, for or against?
Long live the nap! This need is natural. We observe a physiological moment of reduced alertness at the beginning of the afternoon, so our body naturally calls for a nap. Taking a rest in the middle of the day helps reduce stress, eliminate fatigue, facilitate digestion, improve concentration, physical and intellectual performance. It has even been shown in the long term that people who take reasonable naps have a better life expectancy than the general population.
Of course this activity must respect strict rules:
• At the time level: the nap is taken at the beginning of the afternoon exclusively;
• In terms of duration: limit nap time to around twenty minutes in order to have sufficient recovery time to improve the rest of the afternoon. A nap that is too long can cause difficulty emerging and affect sleep needs the following night.
In summary: a nap is very good at the beginning of the afternoon and if it never exceeds 20 minutes!
Healthy lifestyle: how to regulate it properly?
You should expose yourself to daylight as often and for as long as possible, since light is an extremely important factor in regulating the biological clock. For the same reasons, it is important to take your meals at the most regular times possible, which helps the biological clock to better keep track of time.
In the evening, make sure to eat a light dinner close to bedtime (at least 1.5 hours before bedtime ideally) since digestion will interfere with sleep. It is advisable to favor slow sugars rather than proteins or fats.
It is best to avoid stimulants after the early afternoon such as coffee or energy drinks. Indeed, it has been shown that caffeine taken even in the middle of the afternoon has a negative impact on the quality of falling asleep and even potentially on the quality of your sleep during the night.
Physical activity before sleeping: yes or no?
Physical activity is beneficial for sleep, provided it is done several hours before falling asleep. 20 minutes of exercise per day promotes deep sleep at the start of the night.
In the evening, favor calm activities such as reading but avoid:
• Hot baths because, although they are relaxing, they lead to warming of the body temperature. Now, to fall asleep, you have to lower it;
• Sources of stress or intense intellectual activity (horror films, video games, work);
• Screens (television, computer and other tablets) because their light modifies the secretion of melatonin, thus impacting the biological clock (by acting opposite to the functioning of the biological clock and delaying falling asleep).
In case of tension, for example the day before an important meeting, make sure to take your mind off things with reading, soft music, relaxation, etc.
How to guarantee an environment conducive to falling asleep?
Make sure that the bedroom has a moderate temperature between 17° and 20° because the body needs the most moderate temperature possible to be able to lower its own temperature and thus promote falling asleep.
Silence and darkness are of course a favorable environment for sleep.
Any last advice? Don’t check the time at night, especially if you wake up in the middle of the night. Checking the time is stressful and ultimately wakes us up; it will always increase your time awake in bed. If you have difficulty getting back to sleep, get up and do a calm activity while you wait for sleep to return.
Regarding the management of sleep disorders, having a good knowledge of the factors helping or preventing you from sleeping well is the first step. If, after following the advice emeisdifficulties persist, several diseases may be involved and will need to be diagnosed and treated. Don’t hesitate to consult and take your sleep seriously!
Source: www.topsante.com
