― N E W S ―
― N E W S ―
MORE THAN HALF OF SWISS PEOPLE DON’T SLEEP WELL
According to a Danish study published in One Earth in May 2022, we lose an average of forty-four hours of sleep per year. Another finding of note is that disparities have been identified between high and low-income households. The effects of temperature on sleep loss are much greater for those living in low-income countries, due perhaps to a lack of air conditioning. Elderly people (whose heat regulation is less effective) suffer more, as do women, who are more affected than men. The Danish team collected data from 47,000 individuals in 68 different countries, each equipped with a connected bracelet, and compared this data with local weather data. NB: For cooler nights, opt for a duvet and mattress with natural materials.
THE MYSTERIES OF SLEEP – AS REVEALED BY MRI Researchers from École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPDL) and the Universities of Geneva, Cape Town (South Africa) and Bochum (Germany) have joined forces to understand brain activity during sleep using MRI. They’ve discovered that our brains are more active when we’re asleep than you might think. Previously, studies on sleep had been conducted using electroencephalograms (EEG), a technique that measures the brain’s electrical activity by means of electrodes placed on the scalp. Obtaining MRIs of subjects’ brains during deep sleep has proved to be a very difficult task, though, because the machine is very noisy.
According to the ‘Sanitas Health Forecast 2022’ survey published in June of that year, more than half of Swiss men and women (52%) are of the opinion that they don’t sleep very well. Although the Swiss sleep an average of seven hours a night, many believe the time they spend in bed isn’t restful. The vast majority are convinced that stress and worry keep them awake. Respondents to the survey said that their ongoing lack of sleep resulted in lapses of concentration (83%), increased edginess (72%) and mental health problems (70%). The survey was conducted on 2000 individuals across the country aged between 18 and 74. The Sanitas Health Forecast is a survey that has been carried out every year since 2020 for health insurers Sanitas. It aims to achieve a better understanding of Swiss people’s concerns, questions as well as trends and assumptions about health, and share the findings.
GLOBAL WARMING IS CAUSING SLEEP DEPRIVATION WORLDWIDE
Coach Clotilde Dusoulier offers advice on how to cope with everyday stress on pages 10-13.
WHERE DO OUR DREAMS COME FROM?
According to a survey published in 2022 in Nature Aging, the ideal duration of sleep is seven hours for 40-75 year-olds. After examining medical data from some 500,000 adults, scientists concluded that sleeping too much or too little affects our health. Note: On this topic, see the interview on our blog with Dr Espa Cervena of the CENAS sleep medicine centre. Add a QR code to https://www.elitebeds. ch/en/maison-elite/actualite/sleep-deprivation
At the beginning of the year, Professor Francesca Siclari from the Lausanne University Hospital Centre for Sleep Investigation and Research was awarded a European grant to launch her Dreamscape project, aimed at unders- tanding how our dreams are produced. When we’re awake, the action we see is what is actually happening before our eyes, so where does what we see when we’re asleep come from? This research will help understand how the brain can create reality independently of the outside world, and may also help to understand other forms of hallucinations such as those found in certain psychiatric disorders. In addition, the research will be used to help individuals suffering from dream disorders (nightmares or incessant dreams that give sufferers the impression that their brain is never at rest).
A GOOD NIGHT’S REST MEANS 7 HOURS’ SLEEP
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