Sleep: how to sleep well during the holidays?

 Sleep: how to sleep well during the holidays?

During the summer holidays, between evenings with family or friends, the heat preventing sleep, days spent resting at the beach ... sleep can be disturbed. Discover expert advice on how to take advantage of the holidays to relax while keeping your pace and not impacting your biological clock.

Throughout the year, it is important not to accumulate sleep debt . And this is also true during the holidays. However, with tourist activities, the days that get longer, evenings with friends and family, or the heat disturbing sleep , we can quickly find ourselves exhausted at the start of the school year. However, we must keep in mind that too irregular hours can disrupt the habits of young and old and have deleterious consequences on health.. Obviously, the summer period is conducive to more flexibility, the whole thing being to avoid excess. As Dr. Cheryl Tierney of Penn State Children's Hospital (USA) points out, some evenings you stay up later and a few late mornings are inevitable, but "it's all about the balance " and " the compromise is reasonable ."

Recognize your lack of sleep

Very often, we neglect his state of fatigue during the year. " We often sacrifice our sleep for evening housework, the TV, and especially our devices connected to the bed. You think you will go to bed at a certain time, but in reality, you are still surfing websites. an hour later, "said Professor Henri Tuomilehto, a sleep specialist at the University of Eastern Finland. It is clear that in one or two weeks of vacation you will not be able to recover all of your sleep debt. However, if in the evening you feel like you are lacking in energy, " it would be wise to try to sleep an hour longer for a fortnight, it is enough to be able to tell the difference ",

(Re) Take good habits during the summer

Holidays allow you to forget the stresses of everyday life and recharge your batteries for the year to come. Why not take advantage of this period to adopt new sleeping habits to continue in the fall . With moments spent with family or friends, or even the absence of WiFi, this is the ideal time to limit screens, for example, especially in the evening. Their use before bedtime negatively affects the release of melatonin , the sleep hormone, and reduces not only the duration but also the quality of sleep. On vacation, prefer a small board game or card game or a book before going to sleep .

If you sleep in a hotel or in a holiday resort, don't ignore the establishment's gym. It's proven, regular exercise improves sleep. Do not hesitate to do jogging along the beach for example. Even a little bit of walking during your sightseeing will help keep you active and tire you out just enough so you don't go to bed too late. This is important for your health. Because if we often associate holidays with late mornings, it is better to plan morning visits to make the most of the day . In addition to encouraging you to go to bed earlier, this will allow you to maintain a regular sleep pattern.

For those who have opted for a comfortable hotel room, take advantage of the facilities on offer for a good night's sleep. Remember to lower the blinds and draw the curtains to darken the room, and adjust the air conditioning (without overdoing it) to obtain a slightly cooler temperature. Once you get home, put the same ideas into practice: wear a sleep mask or invest in blinds, and consider opening the windows to cool the temperature overnight.

Avoid long naps

When it comes to naps, there are also a few rules to follow. According to Dr. Alon Avidan, director of the center dedicated to sleep disorders at the American University of UCLA, you should avoid long breaks on vacation during the day and prefer a short nap of 15 to 20 minutes maximum at the beginning of the next day. - midday, in case of fatigue. Also note that children over the age of five or six no longer need a daytime nap. It could even disrupt their nighttime sleep according to experts.

Heavier sleepers will be able to take a nap of 30 minutes to 1 hour, but no more. And you have several reasons to get started. These moments of rest will allow you to recover somewhat, even if it is not possible to make up for the lack of sleep accumulated during the year. Naps will also promote nighttime sleep without completely shifting the body clock. In addition, they participate in the drop in blood pressure, in the recovery of the cardiovascular system.. Real allies for the heart! The secretion of two hormones, adrenaline and norepinephrine, which are involved in waking up, stimulate the heart rate. A 2007 Greek scientific study showed that, provided it was regular (three times a week), a 30-minute nap reduced the risk of dying from heart failure by more than 30%.

Napping also improves attention, memory, and alertness . So many benefits that promote creativity and the resolution of difficult problems or situations.

In addition, even short, it helps restore hormone and protein levels that help fight stress. Result: it restores the proper functioning of the immune system. Finally, the nap has a real healing effect. Considered as a non-drug treatment by the National Institute of Sleep and Vigilance (InSV), it would have an analgesic virtue against pain (migraine, joint pain or muscle pain) . It could also, according to the INSV, reduce the consumption of certain drugs such as antihypertensives (against high blood pressure), stimulants or vitamins. It is therefore better to take a nap this summer than a cocktail of food supplements at the start of the school year.

With AFP / Relaxnews