Working from home has a positive effect on sleep - and thus strengthens your health

Created: 01/05/2022, 4:41 PM

From: Chenoa Becker

A nap in the green?

Thanks to home office, this is suddenly possible.

© Alexandra C. Ribeiro via www.imago-images.de

Sleep is important to our health.

But working hours force us to follow an unhealthy rhythm of life.

Thanks to the home office, there is more time to sleep.

Munich - Many people sleep less than necessary and that is mostly due to the job. Shift work, commuting, business trips and meetings take away the time they need. Healthy sleep is so important for new vitality. For example, if you commute 40 minutes, you have already lost 80 minutes of sleep and life time every day. Many sleep experts emphasize that you cannot catch up on missed sleep or fall asleep before you sleep.

In the online magazine “Erbe & Umwelt”, the biologist and science journalist Peter Spork warns of the dramatic consequences that a lack of sleep can have.

For your own life and for society as a whole.

“Lack of sleep is a societal phenomenon,” writes Spork.

"And because sleep is so incredibly important, it is not without consequences: The general sleep deficit is a burden on public health, the economy, and the overall performance of society."

Home office has advantages: sleep is essential for good health

After all, too little sleep is not only harmful to the individual.

The economy has to suffer as well.

60 billion US dollars per year are lost in Germany due to lack of sleep.

In the US it is as much as 411 billion.

This emerges from an estimate by the American think tank Rand Corporation, which Peter Spork quotes.

A lack of sleep also increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and becoming overweight.

The biggest cause of burnout is too little sleep.

According to a Swedish study, burn-out patients only slept 4 to 5 hours a day.

The proportion of deep sleep was comparatively 40 percent lower than that of healthy people.

There are many helpful tips for a good night's sleep.

Finally more sleep thanks to the home office in the corona crisis

Since the pandemic, home office and home schooling have suddenly become part of everyday life.

With a positive side effect: “We sleep significantly more and better because we have the time.

We have been talking about the sleepless society for years, ”said researcher Jürgen Rinderspacher from the University of Münster during a discussion at the Holztbrinck Berlin event forum.

Travel routes are spared and a nap during the lunch break is suddenly also possible.

"We are more flexible in the home office," writes Peter Spork.

“Our sleep times often overlap much more clearly with the window that nature has set for us personally with our individual biological properties.

Unlike usual, we have to follow the fixed working hours less slavishly. "

Sitting at home all day certainly has its disadvantages, such as the physical loss due to too little exercise, but all in all, switching to the home office is good for your health.

Rest and relaxation are the best prerequisites for healthy sleep

The necessary dose of sleep is always dependent on the person. Everyone has a different need for sleep and everyone can find that out for themselves.

There are early risers, night owls and late risers.

Early risers are the least common.

Ironically, because we have always been pushed into the pattern of early risers.

School starts at eight o'clock in the morning and so often does work.

The early start even harms our brains.

The brain clears toxins during sleep

Because we not only produce rubbish in the household, but also in our brain.

But it is armed against this.

The brain simply clears out harmful toxins during sleep.

Provided the body gets enough of it.

The Glymphatic System is the garbage disposal in our brain.

It doesn't work without sleep.

The better this natural waste disposal works, the fitter we stay.

In order for the brain water to wash away this garbage, the spaces between the cells in the brain have to enlarge and that happens in the deep sleep phase.

Without this, cleaning does not take place.

That is why we have to sleep as much and deeply as possible.