Low temperatures and the delay before dawn, typical winter conditions in some regions of the country, can influence people’s sleep and awakening. A specialist from the Instituto do Sono explains that low light affects the so-called internal clock and that the cold allows people to sleep better, since the decrease in body temperature is part of the physiology of sleep.
The first point is that, with the arrival of winter, the days get shorter and the nights get longer, which influences the brightness throughout the day. According to Gabriel Natan, biomedical doctor and researcher at the Sleep Institute, the synchronization of the body’s internal clock, which regulates various body functions, is associated with the variation of light, and the main tip for the brain to understand when it’s day and when it’s night is natural light. “That’s why we get sleepier at night,” he says.
“During the summer, when I wake up at 6 am, it’s daytime, and when it’s daytime, my body reacts much better to waking up, because it’s been made to understand the night as a period of sleep. So if I wake up, and the sun is up, the easier awakening is natural, the brain gets the idea that the day has begun faster. But in winter, at 6 am, it’s still night. so my brain doesn’t buy into the idea that it’s in the wake-up time,” he explained.
According to Nathan, this happens because melatonin, which is the sleep hormone, is secreted during the night or in the dark. “If I wake up [no escuro] in winter, I’m still in the period where melatonin is telling me: it’s still night; so it is not the time to wake up.”
In addition, the biological sleep of the human being, to happen, depends on a decrease in temperature. “When we sleep, the core temperature decreases a little, so we biologically prefer to sleep in the cold. Not intense cold – the ideal temperature for human sleep is around 18 degrees,” said Nathan. This, as long as the person is warm and in a suitable environment to sleep.
light and coffee
The expert said that these two points can make the habit of waking up early in winter difficult in some regions of the country and gave some tips that can help people wake up during the coldest days, which usually have little light in the morning.
“If working hours were flexible, waking up later would not be such a problem. But in practice this happens. Therefore, we will consider here that the person still has to wake up at the time he always woke up. Only winter has arrived, and she’s waking up in the dark. What does the person have to do? Keep resetting the alarm every 5 minutes? [Isso] we avoid it, because you’re fooling yourself into thinking you’re sleeping, but every 5 minutes, you don’t sleep. It closes its eyes, but sleep does not deepen,” she emphasized.
Nathan recommends that the person expose themselves to light as soon as they wake up and turn on equipment such as radio or TV. “It makes the brain, even if in stride, understand that the day has begun. And light is important for that, there is nothing else but light. To wake up, it has to be that great light to show you that the day has begun. Even if it’s dark outside, [é preciso] that you expose yourself to light.”
Natan Gabriel also pointed out coffee as an aid to wake up, as long as people don’t exaggerate consumption. “The idea of coffee in the morning, yes, it will do you a lot of good to wake you up, but let us manage it throughout the day, because the same coffee that wakes you up in the morning will make you sleepy at night, so we cannot exaggerate in the dose,” he said.
People with arrhythmias, heart disease in general, hypertension or anxiety should be careful when consuming stimulant drinks such as coffee, the researcher warned.
