Why do we get insomnia and how to get rid of it?
ANDThe change from winter time to daylight saving time has robbed us all of an hour of sleep… and more. The health cost of this measure is significant. In 2020, a study by American and Swedish researchers found that it expected about 880,000 additional visits doctor all over the world.
We don’t like the movement of clock hands; This changes our rest, and sleep disturbances are an important risk factor for diseases such as depression, obesity, diabetes…
During sleep, “brain garbage disposal” is activated, which removes proteins such as beta-amyloid, which plays an important role in Alzheimer’s disease.
Everyone has had trouble sleeping at some point, it’s normal. But if you’ve been awake three nights a week for at least a month, you should see a specialist. If sleepless nights last more than three months, this is already chronic insomnia. According to the Spanish Sleep Society (SES), a very compromised situation in which five million Spaniards live. Because sleep is not something that can be left aside. Sleep is vital. Researchers suspect that nerve cells in the brain undergo a kind of reset during sleep, allowing them to be more receptive to new stimuli the next morning. Getting enough sleep and getting good sleep allows you to record what you learn into long-term memory.
Moreover, as experiments on animals have shown, during sleep a kind of “brain waste disposal” is activated – the glymphatic system, which is responsible for eliminating proteins accumulated in the brain; Among them is amyloid beta, which plays an important role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.
To share a bed or not, that is the question
The romantic image of sharing a bed with your partner and sleeping in each other’s arms until dawn is often a dream far from reality. In many cases, what you hear is not your partner’s racing heartbeat, but snoring so loud that you have to resign yourself to counting sheep. In 2009, researchers from the University Hospital’s sleep laboratory …
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More and more is known about how the delicate balance between sleep and wakefulness works; what little things can upset you; what role do stress, excess light and poor nutrition play? and what can be done to break the vicious circle.
For example, the University Hospital of Freiburg (Germany) is conducting cutting-edge research. More than 400 people from across the country are expected to take part in the Isleepwell study. In this study, patients were initially allowed only a few hours of sleep each night. Dozing, reading, watching TV or eating in bed is prohibited. If you can’t sleep at night, you should get up; sleeping pills are taboo. When victims receive these instructions, they usually react with horror.
But the goal is for the body and mind to relearn the formula: bed = sleep. Those who follow the recommendations usually become so tired after a few days that they quickly fall asleep at night and therefore wake up less often. Once the sleep diet has been established, the time in bed is again carefully extended until the appropriate amount is found for each person. Half of those treated responded very well to therapy, and another quarter experienced significant improvement.
Sleeping in a state of anxiety
People who have trouble sleeping often say they haven’t slept a wink all night. However, this is not quite true. What they do is they sleep differently than healthy people. Your dream is always on alert. Studies have shown that they have more micro-waking phases than healthy sleepers. These phases occur primarily during REM sleep, which is especially important for stabilizing memory processes.
Additionally, for insomnia sufferers, lack of sleep is another major source of stress. The fear of spending another sleepless night increases the duration of sleep. To avoid tossing and turning in bed, most insomnia sufferers turn to classic sleeping pills such as benzodiazepines, zopiclone or zolpidem, which have a depressant effect on the brain but can negatively affect important processes that should occur during sleep. Among other things, they suppress REM sleep, which can have a negative impact on memory and performance. Benzodiazepines can also be addictive.
For this reason, the army of insomnia sufferers has embraced with hope a new drug that differs in its mechanism of action from previous sleeping pills: daridorexant, which can be used in long-term treatment because it has no addictive potential. Its secret is that it inhibits orexin, a protein that causes wakefulness, which promotes sleep.
The hormone melatonin is also used as a sleep aid. This substance causes a decrease in body temperature, blood pressure and energy requirements at night; This is a signal that tells the body to rest and fall asleep once and for all.
To get a good night’s sleep, it is advisable to spend at least 30-60 minutes outdoors every day and avoid exposing yourself to too much light three hours before bedtime.
The vehicle responsible for activating melatonin and controlling all of our biological clocks is located in the brain: the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN). The functioning of this brain command center depends on light and darkness. When light signals from the eye reach the SCN, it causes a region of the brain stem to send wakefulness signals to the cerebral cortex. When it gets dark, the SCN activates another nerve nucleus that turns off wakefulness signals. Unfortunately, the internal clock is very susceptible to change. If, for example, at night you turn on a light with a high proportion of blue light, read your mobile phone, melatonin levels drop sharply within a few minutes… and the rest ends.
Therefore, to get a good night’s sleep, you should spend at least 30-60 minutes outdoors every day in natural light. Avoid exposing yourself to strong light three hours before bed to ensure melatonin production starts at the right time. Can exercise promote healthy sleep? Dont clear. Many studies show that it improves sleep, especially in older adults. However, anyone who suffers from severe sleep disorders knows that no matter how much they run or bike during the day, when night falls they can start counting sheep.
FOUR REASONS FOR NOT SLEEPING
Restless legs syndrome can seriously disrupt your sleep. Victims experience an unpleasant feeling of restlessness in their legs. This is a neurological disease in which, among other things, iron levels need to be checked. The syndrome can be treated with medications.
Many women lie in bed with cold feet and cannot sleep. A study conducted in Switzerland showed a link between the time it takes to fall asleep and the temperature of the feet and hands. Researchers’ recommendations: Take a warm foot bath at night and wear wool socks.
People react to coffee differently: some can drink a cup at the end of the day without experiencing any consequences, others do not fall asleep afterward. Caffeine has an average half-life of about four hours. After this time, half of the caffeine consumed still has an effect on the body. Therefore, the recommendation is: if you have trouble sleeping, you should …
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Snoring and sleep apnea
Snoring is not harmful to your health, but it can be a sign of sleep apnea and should be monitored. With this disorder, breathing stops; in severe cases, hundreds of times a night, and sometimes for several minutes at a time. Due to the lack of oxygen in the blood, the sleeper wakes up briefly several times. Risk of heart attacks, accidents …
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