Celebrated today (18), World Sleep Day is an opportunity to reflect on the importance of a good and peaceful night’s sleep for physical and mental health. However, seemingly harmless everyday habits, such as using your cell phone or watching TV at bedtime, contribute to stealing precious hours of sleep and harm your health.
For the Brazilian Association of Otorhinolaryngology and Cervico-Facial Surgery (Aborl-CCF), the date serves as a warning about the need for healthy sleep to ensure quality of life. The association recalls that lack of sleep can interfere with mortality rates and contribute to the increase in the prevalence of diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, metabolic syndrome, anxiety, depression, metabolic syndromes.
“Sleep is an integral part of our physiological process. We need sleep to repair the energy spent in a whole day’s work, to consolidate our memory”, he told the Brazil Agency the coordinator of the entity’s Department of Sleep Medicine, Danilo Sguillar.
According to a survey carried out by the Brazilian Sleep Association, the population has been sleeping less in recent years. In 2018, the average was 6 hours and 36 minutes, and in 2019, it dropped to 6 hours and 24 minutes.
Sguillar points out that snoring and insomnia are also indicative of sleep problems that can harm a person’s health. The specialist also highlights obstructive sleep apnea, characterized by complete or partial obstruction of airflow in the airways while the person sleeps.
When this happens, the person may snore loudly or make choking noises while trying to breathe, as the body is deprived of oxygen. If left untreated, obstructive sleep apnea is a high risk factor for problems such as high blood pressure, heart disease and type 2 diabetes, among others.
“Those who snore and have apnea do not rest as much as they should, do not have a restful sleep and tend to get drowsy during the day, have difficulty concentrating, irritability and memory impairment, which affects professional performance. Depending on the severity of the problem, this poor quality of sleep can lead to high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity, in addition to depression, anxiety and a greater risk for accidents, that is, the untreated disease reduces life expectancy”, explains the otorhinolaryngologist.
As a result, the Brazilian Association of Otorhinolaryngology and Cervico-Facial Surgery launched a campaign, with shirts, posters and posts on social networks. The campaign theme Snoring Is No Jokeaims to make society aware that this disorder needs to be taken seriously.
“We have a campaign with the snoring theme, because snoring is a very frequent symptom that occurs in most homes and is often seen as a joke, as a joke. Many forget that, behind snoring, there is an important pathology that is obstructive sleep apnea,” warned Sguillar.
A study published in 2018 in the scientific journal The Lancet estimated that more than 936 million people have obstructive sleep apnea worldwide. The number is nearly 10 times higher than the World Health Organization’s 2007 estimate of more than 100 million people with the disease.
prevalence
The disorder is more frequent among males, over 50 years of age, with obesity and facial changes, such as a more recessed chin, voluminous tongue, enlarged tonsils and nasal septum deviations.
An important step for anyone who comes into contact with someone who snores, particularly when the noise is loud, shrill or interrupted by pauses in breathing, is to alert and advise the person to see a specialist to check for possible problems, says Sguillar. “Whoever is seeing the person sleeping and snoring has to make the alert so that he goes to seek medical help.”
Created by the World Sleep Foundation, World Sleep Day is remembered as an opportunity to celebrate the importance of sleep and draw global attention to health issues that are directly related to sleep, from health to social or educational aspects.
The date is mobile and always occurs on the last Friday before the autumnal equinox for the Southern Hemisphere and the spring equinox for the Northern Hemisphere.
The tips from the Brazilian Association of Otorhinolaryngology and Cervico-Facial Surgery to help people sleep better and have quality sleep are:
● Do regular physical activity.
● Have adequate food, with light meals at dinner, to have a more peaceful and uninterrupted night’s sleep.
● Do not consume caffeine-based foods such as black tea, coffee and cola.
● Avoid excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages.
● No smoking.
● Lose weight, in the case of obese patients.
● Adopt sleep hygiene practices, such as avoiding screens at night. Cell phones, tablets and televisions should be turned off at least one hour before bedtime.
● Reading out of bed, as it helps to lull you to sleep.
● Sleep in the dark room.
● Practicing meditation can facilitate sleep preparation.
