Diabetes, hypertension, obesity, decline in immune defenses and memory up to Parkinson's and Alzheimer's: sleeping little and badly is an alert, something is wrong with our body, and if we don't take action in the right way the risks are serious . Diagnosis and therapy are essential but lifestyle is also essential. This is often reduced to the improper term 'insomnia' but this is not exactly the case. The contemporary rhythms of life (especially for those who live and work in the city) do not help but finding a balance between work, private and social life can already be a cure.
"Insomnia is one of the many sleep disorders - explains Professor Giuseppe Plazzi, head of the research "Sleep disorders and biological rhythms" at the Institute of Neurological Sciences of Bologna (Irccs) and since November 2022 president of the European 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 those of breathing linked to sleep, daytime hypersomnia disorders, therefore hypersomnia of central origin, circadian rhythm disorders, parasomnias and movement disorders during sleep. Insomnia, in particular, can be chronic or of short duration and is characterized by a sleep of poor quality, of short or insufficient duration. What is the first thing that someone who suffers from sleep disorders should do? "There are two things you can do in parallel - advises Plazzi -. The first is to talk to your doctor because insomnia can be, in addition to a pathology that still needs to be treated, also an alarm signal that something is wrong and therefore other pathologies in our body. The second, do a sort of self-examination to understand what things are wrong with your lifestyle that can also influence your sleep."
The rhythms of contemporary life, especially for those who live and work in cities, have an important impact on the quality and quantity of sleep, and it is an element that must be taken into great consideration. "Within the working population at a European level - notes Plazzi - approximately 30% of active people work shifts. Shift work is known to have a deleterious impact on the quality of sleep and also on the possibility of causing sleep pathologies chronic. 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 pollution and acoustic with excessive sensory stimulation. These are all elements that can cause sleep disturbances 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 experience sleep deprivation. chronic sleep". What are the physical and mental risks of those who don't take care of their sleep quality? "Sleep - replies Professor Plazzi who is also the scientific director and coordinator of the narcolepsy and hypersomnia clinic at the Irccs in Bologna - is not just 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 reorganization of endocrinological rhythms starting from insulin but also cortisol. Sleep is a moment of readjustment of our cardiovascular system, fundamental moment, and therefore with its deprivation we risk disorders of mood, memory, attention, metabolic disorders starting from an increase in insulin resistance and therefore contracting diabetes, disorders of fat metabolism and therefore an increase in weight body, disorders linked to our cardiovascular system with a tendency to increase blood pressure, hypertension, and finally to the immune system and memory which, as we know, are closely linked. Ultimately, good sleep is a guarantee for a good immune defense. Another element is that of neurodegenerative diseases caused by poor quality sleep. 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 such as Alzheimer's disease and all similar pathologies or tauopathies linked to the accumulation of tau protein in the brain,and Parkinson's disease in all its differentiations. So cleaning our brain during sleep protects us from these pathologies."