The importance of sleep

How many of you suffer from insomnia? One of the themes I am writing about these days in my new book is that of sleep, which is one of the 5 pillars of health.

Sleep is a basic requirement for healthy living, although too often it is underappreciated. Unfortunately, we sometimes happen to sacrifice it for a variety of reasons: the birth of a child, shifts at work, exams at the university, a TV series or a night at the disco. Who has not had this happen to them?

We spend about a third of our lives sleeping, but it is by no means a wasted time. At night we reactivate vital functions, regenerate, change brain activities and process important decisions.

It is not easy for everyone to surrender at night into the arms of Morpheus. Millions of people worldwide have sleep disorders. Data indicate that about 30-35% of the world’s population experience sleep difficulties and 10-15% report symptoms of insomnia that impair their quality of life.

Losing even a few hours of sleep can have detrimental effects on a wide variety of cognitive processes such as attention, language, reasoning, decision making, and learning. Memory is also affected, since sleep facilitates the consolidation of memories and the acquisition of new ones.
So, if you are among the many college students who tend to sleep less than necessary, especially before an exam, know that this is not a good strategy! It has been proven that students who sleep a regular number of hours perform better in their studies than those who suffer from sleep deficit.

Moreover, after too little rest it is easy to feel tired, irritable or anxious, and insufficient sleep weakens the immune system and promotes metabolic disorders.

It is precisely for these reasons that I have developed a specific program that my patients can do at Palazzo di Varignana: “Deep Sleep”, or gentle physiological sleep, precisely with the aim of raising awareness of sleep disorders.