How much would you pay for an ‘all in one’ that got…?
- Make you happier
- Healthier
- Smarter
- It would protect you from diseases
- From depression
- Of obesity
- from bad mood
- It will help you lose weight
- To have greater concentration
- To be more attractive to the opposite sex
- To improve your relationships
- It will take away your years and wrinkles
“The answer is in the dream and it’s totally free, although it does require the commitment of each person to generate the habit,” says Jana Fernández, master in Sleep Physiology and Bioethics, popularizer, lecturer and author of the book Learn to rest. The 7D method to take care of your physical, mental and emotional well-being (Current Platform Ed.).
That easy and that simple but the modern lifestyle invites everything except rest. “We value people for how busy they are, and the more like a headless chicken they are, the more successful they seem to us. When they tell you: ‘I haven’t slept at all today, I haven’t even stopped to eat,’ we automatically think about what’s important. what is it”. However, the opposite is true, says Fernández: “The better you sleep, the better you will function at all levels.”
STIMULATED BY SCREENS
If we find it difficult to fall asleep, it is advisable to go to bed at the same time and not have a heavy dinner.Shutterstock
To this frenetic pace we also add constant hyper stimulation. “If we go to sleep doing scroll on a mobile screen watching TikTok we are sending constant dopamine signals to the brain. The same thing happens if we watch one episode after another hooked on Netflix until three in the morning. Our nervous system is activated. Or if we check work email and start thinking about what we have to do the next day. In a state of alert it becomes difficult to rest,” says Fernández.
Once everything that makes it difficult for us to fall asleep is clear, from the frenetic pace to the misuse of technology, there are many things that we can do to relax and are in our power to promote quality rest. Jana Fernández’s first advice is have a regular bedtime. “Sleep is not an exact science, in the sense of going to bed at 10:00 p.m. every day and falling asleep. That doesn’t happen, because it depends a lot on how our activity has been, how we are physiologically, hormonally… That said, having a regularity when going to bed, getting up, going to the gym and even eating, helps to synchronize all the processes that take place in the body. The more regular we are at those times, the better the clocks will be. mark biological rhythms”.
It’s also interesting pay attention to the temperature. “It has to be a cool environment. Body temperature drops between one and two degrees while we sleep, because we expel heat from the core through the extremities. If it is very hot in the room, like a typical August day, it is more complicated for the body to do that thermoregulation. In summer, it is within the normal range, but it also happens in winter in those houses that maintain central heating, says Fernández. “I would advise not sleeping with a radiator, at least closing the one in the room. To have a good feeling of comfort, it is recommended between 18 and 21º.”
THE BED FOR THE THREE ‘S’
Mental rumination occurs in bed because we don’t allow ourselves to stop all day.Shutterstock
During the confinement due to the pandemic we were truly aware of the importance of separate the spacesrecalls the sleep specialist. “In very small houses, you had to set up the office in the living room, in the same space where you ate, or in the bedroom.” It is not the most optimal, because the brain associates spaces with tasks. “The English say that the bed is for the triple S: sick (be sick), sex (have sex) and sleep (sleep)”. Everything else we should do outside of bed. “If I get under the duvet, with the laptop in my lap, and I start working at night, the next day, my brain is not going to identify bed with rest and will be waiting to see what happens, in a state of alert. Therefore, it is important to help him understand that that space is reserved.”
And the eight hours, are they a myth? “In the scientific field, a consensus has been reached through observation and study of human beings that a healthy adult without pathologies needs between seven and nine hours a day of sleep.” Does anything happen if I sleep six and a half? No, as long as you feel good, have energy to do your tasks and don’t have problems, he says.
“But there are those who have enough at four and a half and that is not true, because you do not give the body time to carry out a lot of nocturnal cleaning and renewal processes. There is only a minimal percentage of the population, around a 2%, with a genetic mutation, who do not feel harmed by sleeping so few hours. The rest of the people who say that are. pulling stimulants all day: They drink three coffees, energy drinks and soft drinks, they do high-intensity workouts that generate cortisol and activate them, but they are not really rested. That’s why we will have to sleep more or less depending on how we are and how the day has developed.” Duration is important but also quality. “It is important to sleep straight, not fragmented, and that we can reach a phase of deep sleep.”
MENTAL RUMIATION
What happens when I go to bed, I can’t stop thinking and tossing and turning and I get more stressed because I can’t sleep? “That happens because we have not had a disconnection phase before going to bed. We have not paused throughout the day and the brain needs to rest from so much activity. There are techniques such as concentrating on breathing, on how our belly swells, the air enters and leaves, or meditation, even guided, that can help us get out of that loop. It sounds esoteric, but it is pure physiology: knowing how to stop.”
The important thing is to get disconnect from workworries, technological stimulation and connecting with ourselves and our rest, he warns. “You can be in bed for 10 hours and not rest well because you are thinking about what you will say tomorrow in the meeting, or about what you have said to your partner in a bad way and that you could have said well. This is cultural because we are obsessed with reaching everything. We feel overwhelmed, especially the most perfectionist profiles who want to give the best in all areas, they continue looking for that perfection, that permanent shot of dopamine.
DOES SLEEP COME BACK?
What happens if we compensate for the lack of daily rest on the weekend? “It does not recover, because every day regeneration processes are carried out that cannot wait for the day you sleep 14 hours. That said, any day is good to start sleeping more, just like any day is good to quit smoking. That’s why it’s so important consistency with sleep“. Where to start? “Exposing ourselves as much as possible to light information from outside, because now we live against nature with respect to light. “This will help us have the basis of a healthy lifestyle, also marked by daily physical exercise, correct nutrition and good stress management.”
What would you say to people who need a background noise to sleep, like the television on? “It is a lesser evil, because many associate it with disconnection and if that helps them put an end to the day, like someone who reads the chapter of a book, it is not so bad, although it is not the most advisable thing to sleep with a screen on”.
PREBED RITUALS
A family chat, a warm shower… There are many tools that help us relax, depending on each person’s personality, and that can induce us to relax. calm state. “The important thing, more than the habit itself, is that it is repeated over time, due to the brain’s anticipatory capacity, which will associate that chapter of the book with sleep.”
Rest is also a moment where cell renewal. “That is why it is important to clean the skin well and apply a good serum and cream, because this is when there is greater collagen production and toxins are eliminated. Active ingredients such as retinal are more effective when there is greater microcirculation,” explains the sleep expert. , ambassador of ecological and natural cosmetics from Alma Secret. “A bad night’s sleep shows in our appearance, in shine and sebum secretion.”
PRIORITIZE REST
Heavy dinners and caffeinated drinks also worsen our rest. “I don’t like to set a time after which you shouldn’t have a coffee because everyone metabolizes it differently. But if you have trouble sleeping, don’t drink a coffee at five in the afternoon.” The most advisable thing is to avoid going to sleep while digesting. “It is preferable dine early and light“. Even physical activity can upset us if it is done late in the day. “It is better to train in the morning if you have trouble falling asleep, because it activates you.” And melatonin, does it work? “Medication, with an objective specific and at a certain time, it has to be prescribed by a doctor. And supplementation, which can help, should be taken with advice, and not in a crazy way. It is not harmless and melatonin taken irregularly can cause a sleep problem that you do not have. This does not mean that it is bad, far from it, but like magnesium, it is better to consult and attend to our needs. Do it with head and a professional.”
But if the problem is sleep, rather than melatonin, you must first go to the source. Do I spend hours watching social networks? Am I not disconnecting? “We should prioritize rest and give it its place in our lives. As with exercise, we take away hours to do other things that we want or should do. We sleep or train with the time we have left and it should be the opposite,” he advises. Fernandez. It even encourages marking those times on the agenda, because what is not in it, does not exist. “If not, we will let ourselves be carried away by stimuli and we will forget what is important“.