The chronobiologist M. Ángeles Bonmatí makes an enthusiastic defense of good sleep as a fundamental pillar of good health in her book 'Let nothing take away our sleep' (Crítica, 2023). The scientist from the University of Murcia, with a degree in Biology and a doctor in Physiology, with an excellent career in the scientific and informative field, said that evolution has maintained sleep in the body, “and for a reason it will be: If we don't sleep, we die.” », remarked the guest in the LA VERDAD Culture Classroom in an event held this Tuesday in Murcia in collaboration with the Cajamurcia Foundation and the Vocento Foundation and led by the journalist Fuensanta Carreres.
Bonmatí recalled that the pandemic produced a stressful effect on society that meant losing routines and forced many people to telework and disrupted schedules, which could contribute to a problem with sleep and lead to an increase in the consumption of psychotropic drugs. Not sleeping well promotes irritability and the consumption of junk food, he stressed.
The scientist gave details of a new project promoted by the University of Murcia to understand the sleeping habits of students from three institutes in the Region of Murcia, which will also investigate the students' perception of the concept of sleep.
Regarding nocturnal activation due to fixation on screens, he said that our sleep is being affected by the mechanism that maximizes our attention with applications on mobile devices. This competition for time generates economic benefits for large platforms, he indicated, but, according to Bonmatí, “not getting enough sleep destroys mental health, especially in adolescent brains.” According to the researcher from the University of Murcia “this can lead to dramatic situations, such as increases in suicide, for example, and we want to know with this study in institutes how it will also affect academic performance among schoolchildren.”
Bonmatí regretted that there are not enough studies on how to treat insomnia processes in men and women, and criticized the bias in research that has excluded women in these studies. The scientist advocates for less noisy environments in our coexistence, as requested by associations such as No More Noise in Murcia, whose president was also among the large audience.
Regarding sleep cycles, he indicated that breaking the architecture of sleep into different phases does not guarantee the necessary rest. And he asked not to confuse dreams with daydreams, “because dreams are experiences that are not outside our brain,” and he said that we should not confuse them with pseudoscience either. “What has been scientifically proven is that a person who dreams about a loss recovers better from it, overcomes that phase of grief better, than someone who does not dream.”
What is good sleep? Sleep between seven and eight hours, according to scientific societies, and continuously. Those who don't sleep a wink most of the time arrive late to the sleep units, and also have waiting lists in the public health system to access sleep studies.
He said that it is also difficult for our sleep to adapt to the change of time: “These sudden changes to our physiology do not suit us very well,” he warned. Regarding the nap, he indicated that it is very good for our physiology to sleep at night, and if we sleep during the day it suffers. This does not mean, clarified the guest at the LA VERDAD Culture Classroom, that a short nap, less than half an hour, can be very good to recover from intense work in the morning or if you have not slept well the night before.
Bonmatí responded to numerous questions and curiosities from the public, and concluded that excessive concern about sleep can contribute to worse sleep.
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