It is necessary to open the space to ensure at least 7.5 hours of sleep.

Daily activities or stressful situations can affect your sleep routine, causing the quality of your sleep to be poor and, as a result, you may feel much more tired or irritable during the day.

For this reason, we bring you some recommendations that will help you better distribute your time and rest in a more appropriate way, which will allow you to stay healthier. Sergio Naza, an epidemiologist at SURA, highlights that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), sleep is the first physiological need. Therefore, it is necessary to make room for at least 7.5 hours each day to rest, because, if you do not have that amount of sleep, there will be a loss of wakefulness that can affect the performance of different daily activities.

“Loss of sleep can cause chronic fatigue, which leads to cardiovascular disease, metabolic problems (such as diabetes and obesity), cancer, immune system failure, and chronic pain, among others. Therefore, it is very important to maintain good sleep hygiene,” comments Naza.

This specialist stresses that it is very important to comply with these periods of sleep that range between 7.5 and 8.5 hours a day. “During this time we have cycles of ups and downs, in which we dream several times a night, but we also sleep deeply. This is where cellular recovery occurs and memory is generated,” according to our expert.

Both phases are necessary for the cycle to be complete. If they are interrupted, productivity will decrease and the person will be more prone to irritability, since sleeping well cuts off the production of cortisol (a substance that generates stress in the brain). In addition, just like a sedentary lifestyle, not having good sleeping habits also increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as the possibility of suffering from metabolic diseases such as diabetes.

So we need two things to sleep well: getting enough sleep and getting good quality sleep. So how do we develop healthy sleep habits? Our expert explains that we need to have ten elements defined:

1. Try to spend approximately eight hours in bed and go to bed earlier and earlier.
2. Be regular with your sleep schedule.
3. Relax before going to bed and learn to lower your energy levels by avoiding cell phone and TV screens.
4. Eat well at dinner time. Suggested foods are carbohydrates and dairy products.
5. Take a hot shower 30 minutes before bed.
6. Avoid alcohol and caffeine consumption.
7. Don't exercise before going to bed.
8. Make sure the room is dark and quiet.
9. If you can't sleep, get out of bed and read something relaxing. Avoid reading on your phone.
10. Try doing meditation exercises like Mindfulness.

Naza also recommends taking short naps, although he reiterates that this does not prevent fatigue: “Some people do not like napping because it makes them grumpy. How can we prevent this? Sleeping only 15 minutes is the magic number. If you use more than that, you can fall into a deep phase of sleep and that is when irritability appears, just when sleep is interrupted. On the other hand, a quarter of an hour keeps us alert.”

And remember, the body is very clever: if you don't get enough sleep from Monday to Friday, you won't find a balance on the weekend by trying to sleep twice as long. The physiological processes that occur need daily compensation.