In a chaotic and busy society like ours, for many of us it has become almost normal to sacrifice hours of sleep to be used for work or other commitments; the opinion of doctors, however, has never changed: those who sleep little risk suffering its effects in the long run, more or less serious.
What the experts say
Workaholics, anxious people who struggle to sleep, fans of TV series marathons and night owls in general are potentially at risk categories. Sleeping little and badly it is not good for our body. This is not a simple warning to be listened to with little interest, but a real alarm raised by experts who know the problem well. Incorrect rest, in addition to having a negative impact on our mood and performance, can lead to the onset of more or less serious pathologies, depending on our body’s response. In fact, it is important to remember that we are not all the same, and not all of us react in the same way to certain factors.
Generally speaking, however, among the diseases that can most commonly affect those who sleep little we haveobesity and the diabetesbut also thehypertension. Among the consequences of poor and/or bad rest we also find a weakening of the immune system, with all that entails. Finally, among the most serious pathologies, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s are indicated.
Hence the importance of giving the right value and the right time to such an important moment of the day, often overlooked. Sleeping is good for you, and you can’t do without it.
Insomnia
There is still too little talk about the problem. Often, when dealing with sleep-related disorders, we tend to talk about “insomnia”, as if this could define them all. “Insomnia is one of many sleep disorders”explains ad instead Handle Giuseppe Plazzihead of research Sleep disorders and biological rhythms at the Institute of Neurological Sciences of Bologna (Irccs). Plazzi is also president ofEuropean narcolepsy network (Eunn). “There are six fundamental categories of sleep disorders, insomnia is certainly one of these and is also the most frequent, therefore the one with the highest prevalence and incidence. The other disorders are breathing disorders linked to sleep, daytime hypersomnia disorders, i.e. hypersomnia of central origin, circadian rhythm disorders, parasomnias and movement disorders during sleep. Insomnia, in particular, can be chronic or short-term and is characterized by poor quality, short or insufficient sleep.“, adds the professor.
But what to do when you realize you have a problem of this type? Doctor Plazzi invites you to contact your doctor doctor, who will certainly analyze the situation. Sometimes the difficulty falling asleep can also hide something else, it can be an alarm signal that our body gives us. In addition to talking to your doctor, you can try to get to know yourself better. By taking some time, we can try to understand what the causes may be and start finding remedies, working on our own lifestyle.
“Within the working population at European level, around 30% of active people work shifts”, clarifies Plazzi. “Shift work is known to have a deleterious impact on the quality of sleep and also on the possibility of causing chronic sleep pathologies. Approximately 25%-30% of people who work as shift workers develop a chronic sleep pathology: an extremely high figure. Then there are all the forms of alteration of our biorhythms and circadian rhythms also caused by light and noise pollution with excessive sensory stimulation. These are all elements that can cause sleep disorders and which can have a huge impact on the quality and quantity of sleep, so much so that we have a high percentage of both adolescents and adults who now have a sleep deprivation chronic“, he adds. “Sleep is not only a moment of rest and refreshment, which is also its fundamental function, but it is also a moment of activation of the systems that archive our memories, therefore for memory, and a fundamental moment for the rearrangement of rhythms. endocrinological starting from insulin but also cortisol. Sleep is a time for our cardiovascular system to readjust“, remember.
The problem of neurodegenerative diseases
And if we have seen that sleeping little has effects on our body weight, blood sugar and blood pressure, we cannot ignore even more serious pathologies. “There are many studies today that demonstrate how the quality of sleep and the right quantity of sleep are fundamental to avoid the repositioning of anomalous proteins, they are called misfolded proteins, which are responsible for all the fundamental forms of neurodegenerative disorders that afflict man like the disease ofAlzheimer’s and all pathologies similar to it, i.e. tauopathies linked to the accumulation of tau protein in the brain, and the disease of Parkinson in all its differentiations.
Therefore, cleaning our brain during sleep protects us from these pathologies“, concludes Professor Giuseppe Plazzi.
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