sleep

is leaving us without sleep

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With the increase in temperatures, it is normal to start tossing and turning in bed, desperately searching for the cold side of the pillow or surrendering to the air conditioning at three in the morning because nothing cool comes in through the window. What until recently we considered a simple summer annoyance has become a measurable, quantifiable and science-backed phenomenon, since global warming is literally robbing us of hours of sleep. It has been analyzed. This is not an exaggeration based on a few bad nights, but rather the scientific community has cross-referenced millions of biometric data with global weather records to confirm that nighttime heat is eroding our quality of life. This conclusion has not been reached with simple surveys, but rather A study has chosen to analyze more than 7 million sleep records obtained through activity bracelets in 68 countries. The conclusion was that, as nighttime temperatures rise, the duration and quality of rest plummet. And it is the most normal thing, since our body needs to reduce its core temperature to initiate and maintain sleep and, when the outside environment is too warm, this physiological process is blocked. More tests. Other research published in Naturethat analyzed 23 million days of sleep records put exact figures on the problem. Here they saw that, for every 10 °C increase in ambient temperature, sleep problems skyrocket, drastically reducing both the total duration of rest and, what is worse, the deep sleep phase, which is responsible for the physical and cognitive restoration of our body. Many factors. Although the temperature increases for everyone equally, it does not affect us in the same way, as a review points out published in Sleep Medicine. One of their conclusions is that in older people the capacity for self-regulation is naturally lower, and that is why it is much more difficult for an aging body to dissipate heat and adapt its core temperature, making them much more vulnerable to tropical nights. Sex also influences, since studies indicate that the impact on sleep loss for each extra degree of temperature is significantly greater in women than in men, due in part to physiological differences in thermal regulation and hormonal factors. Socially. If we cross all this data with the economic level, we can see that in developing regions the loss of sleep is much greater, which makes us revive the term “air conditioning gap.” And those who cannot afford cooling systems or live in areas with poor infrastructure suffer the impact of the heat to the fullest. Climate change. We can’t just blame the summer, as organizations like Climate Central have started to calculate exactly how many of these hours of lost sleep bear the direct signature of anthropogenic climate change. Their recent analysis shows that global warming is multiplying the frequency of these abnormally warm nights, and it’s not just that it’s hot in July, but that nighttime minimum temperatures are rising at a faster rate than daytime maximums. That is to say, we are facing a major public health problem, since chronic loss of sleep not only makes us feel bad the next day. It has been shown that not sleeping properly is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, mental health problems, cognitive decline, and an increase in work and traffic accidents. Images | Ron Lach In Xataka | Global warming has stepped on the accelerator at an unprecedented rate and we are getting closer to the point of no return

how they differ and why they don’t let you sleep

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It is often said that any time in the past was better. Normally this phrase is the fruit of our tendency to idealize what has already happened. However, with The heat and hot nights are beginning to be an indisputable reality.. If we think of our past summer nights, we remember the tropical nights, in which the temperature does not drop below 20ºCas something specific. In the case of Spain, at least, they were isolated nights in which sleeping was a challenge. Now, however, they have not only become a norm that makes us live hugging the fanbut we have unlocked two other types of nights: equatorial and infernal. The name of the latter gives what it promises. Because of global warmingour nights have become hell; which, unfortunately for us, has only just begun. This affects our rest and, as a consequence, our performance during the day and our long-term health. It is no small feat, so it is worth looking for methods to sleep despite the high nighttime temperatures. Of course, before seeing what those methods may be, it is important to start at the beginning and learn what each type of night consists of. The night thermometer: difference between tropical, equatorial and infernal night As we have seen, when we talk about hot nights, there are three different types. Tropical night: It is what we were more or less used to, although not with the frequency of today. It occurs when temperatures do not drop below 20ºC throughout the night. Equatorial (or torrid) night: In this case, the mercury does not drop below 25ºC. It may not seem like much, but 5ºC is very noticeable. Normally these high night temperatures are reached by heating the sea water, heat island effect in cities or hot, dry winds. hellish night: The name delivers what it promises. Temperatures do not drop below 30ºC between dusk and dawn, so rest is much more complicated and the effects of heat even more dangerous than during the day in some cases. Why is it physically impossible to sleep in these temperatures? Our dream is governed by circadian cycles. These are 24-hour cycles with which many of our physiological functions are regulated. In the case of sleep, we sleep once a day, usually during the night. Therefore, when our brain detects that it has gotten dark, it begins to release melatonin, the hormone that helps us fall asleep. On the other hand, as daylight sets in, the release of this hormone is inhibited. But melatonin doesn’t tell us to close our eyes and put our brains in rest mode until the next day. This sleep stimulation takes place on many levels. For example, in order for us to sleep, our body temperature must drop a little. It is something that occurs naturally, thanks precisely to that release of melatonin. But of course, if the ambient temperature is very high, it is too complicated to maintain that ideal temperature for rest. This is why we have such a hard time sleeping on hot nights. The entire process is affected, although the most susceptible is REM sleepessential for a good rest. What happens to your body when you try to sleep at more than 25ºC? We have seen that the brain detects when it is day and night, but how does it do it? There are actually several factors. The most intuitive is the entry of light through the retina. If there is light, it is interpreted as daytime and when it decreases it is associated with night. This is the reason why having rooms that are too lit at night, especially with blue light, makes it difficult for us to fall asleep. However, light is not the only indicator of day and night. The brain is also guided by temperatureswhich normally rise during the day and descend at night. It is not usual for the temperature to be above 25ºC at night. That’s why, circadian rhythms get out of whack and cannot fall asleep properly. If melatonin were released in adequate quantities, it would lower the temperature even further, but when it is very hot not enough is released, so everything becomes a vicious circle. In addition, the hypothalamus, which is our first center for regulating body temperature, continues to work at full capacity. It must continue working so that our body does not get too hot, so remains overactivated and we cannot rest. As you see, everything leads to the same thing. With the high night temperatures we cannot rest. The ideal temperature to fall asleep according to science With everything we have seen above, it is clear that there is an ideal temperature to fall asleep. If it is too high, circadian cycles become unbalanced, while excessive cold does not help us sleep either. That’s why, the sleep foundations recommendation is maintain the temperature of the rooms in which we sleep between 15.6ºC and 20ºC. The open window on hot nights does not help, since even tropical nights, the least severe, rise above that range. The map of sleepless nights in Spain: the most affected areas The areas most affected by hot nights are mainly the Mediterranean regions, the Guadalquivir basin, the community of Madrid and Extremadura. Also are becoming increasingly common in the Canary Islandswhere an increase in hellish nights is even beginning to be detected. The Mediterranean and the Guadalquivir Valley: the “hot spots” of summer In the Mediterranean highlights the case of the hellish nights in the province of Almeríawhere in June 2026 there have been four consecutive nights with temperatures above 30ºC. In the Guadalquivir Valley and regions close to its basin they are not far behind. Although there they are standing out more due to the maximum temperatures than the minimum ones, so far this summer tropical nights have already been recorded in places like Écija, belonging to the province of Seville. In any case, its particular hell occurs during the day, with maximum temperatures well above 40ºC. … Read more

“The guideline is not to practice it three hours before going to sleep”

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When it comes to combating the hated insomnia, there are many techniques that are commonly used, such as stay away from cell phone screenshaving a room with a good temperature or even relaxation techniques. But one of the most important tips we can also give is not to exercise several hours before going to bed, because instead of making us sleep peacefully, it will make us wide-eyed. An inconsistency. Under the principle of logic, it is known by all that when we do an intense workout we end up exhausted and wanting to lie down in bed after a shower. This relationship may make us believe that doing sports can actually cause us to rest much better, but the reality is quite different. It’s not the sport. With this statement, we should not fall into the idea that exercising is bad for getting a good night’s sleep, because it is false. The opposite happensas official guidelines point out, such as that of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which point because practicing regular exercise is one of the most effective tools to maintain good sleep hygiene. In fact, massive population studies show that those who play sports sleep better than sedentary people. The conflict is in the time we leave between finishing a sports session and going to sleep. And if we finish playing sports at nine at night and want to sleep at ten thirty, we are going to find ourselves with a highly stimulated nervous system that does not allow the body to secrete melatonin and lower body temperature. Demonstrated. A comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis published in Nature concluded that moderate intensity exercise during the day is the best ally for sleep, since it reduces the time we are awake once we fall asleep. However, researchers drew a red line when they saw that crossing the barrier of 90 minutes of intense exercise at night is directly associated with poor quality rest. This idea is reinforced by recent research, such as Leota’s studiowhere it is shown that very long training sessions in the evening generate such metabolic excitement that they drastically hinder the onset of sleep. Beyond melatonin. This is known as the ‘sleep hormone’ and without a doubt the one that has transcended the most to society and who tries to compensate through pills that are sold in any supermarket. But there is another very important molecule that explains this phenomenon, which is orexin. This is nothing more than a natural neuropeptide of the brain that is very high in the morning to activate us and that cAs the day goes by, your concentration decreases. until it is at a minimum concentration so that we can sleep at night. The problem is that exercising intensely activates its production and that is why, when we want to sleep, it remains at a high concentration that can cause us to have problems falling asleep. The experts. One of the voices that has pointed to this period of hours between exercise and going to bed is that of Alfredo Rodríguez Muñoz, professor of Psychology, through a interview in The Voice of Galicia. In this one he points out “the guideline is not to practice it three hours before going to sleep.” The recommendation given in this case is that the exercise should always be done first thing in the morning or first thing in the afternoon. In this way, we manage to maintain the benefits during rest, but we do not sacrifice our hours of rest. Images | Tania Mousinho Victor Freitas In Xataka | We thought that sleeping was only good for rest. It actually helps us build new muscle.

Experts agree that “the quality of rest depends on whether you go to bed at the time when your body is ready to sleep”

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When you read the question “what time should you go to bed?” He usually waits for a number, a specific time, a recurring pattern to do as the day ends. Bad news. What research has discovered is that the ‘perfect time’ for going to bed is with parents. That is, genetics (chronotype) and a handful of other things. That’s why it’s time to see what the experts say. The time to go to sleep. These days, there are some statements from dr. Celia García Maloneurologist specializing in Sleep Medicine and co-director of the Madrid Clinic CISNe in which she explains that the quality of rest does not depend only on the number of hours. On the contrary, it often depends on sleeping at a time when the body is biologically ready for it. This is interesting because it shows a paradigm shift in global sleep science. That moment matters, yes (but not that much). In 2021, Nikbakhtian and his team reviewed sleep routines of more than 100,000 adults. The interesting thing about this study is that they did not use self-reported responses, but rather what a week of wrist accelerometer data said. Their conclusions were clear: going to bed between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. was associated with a lower cardiovascular incidence. It was bad news for Spain, the European country that takes the longest to go to bed. However, the details are important: it was not a question of ‘the earlier you go to bed the better’ (because going to bed before 10pm was also a problem); It was about finding the appropriate moment for each society, country or culture. And that’s where the surprises begin. Because what we are discovering is that regularity is the key. In this case, the Windred team reviewed data from six years of life of about 60,000 people. Their conclusions were that the most regular quartiles showed between 20% and 48% less mortality from all causes compared to the most irregular ones. This is because, we now believe, genetic variants are associated more with schedule than with duration and quality of the dream. The researchers’ thesis is that when we find a stable time to go to bed, the rest of the pieces begin to organize themselves. What does all this mean? For us mortals who just want to sleep, there are a handful of consequences: There is no magic hour. What we have to do is look for a stable window: if we find a time to go to bed, the rest of the system tends to adapt. However, chronotypes exist. It’s a good idea to find out which one is ours and “negotiate with it.” Take care of your dream. Although we sometimes insist on sleeping at a certain time, we often forget that sleep hygiene (and, above all, light) is one of the most important things to sleep well. Image | Annie Spratt In Xataka | You take some melatonin and fall asleep. It seems like a harmless practice for your health but it is not so.

We’ve been sold melatonin as the ultimate harmless sleep supplement. Science does not think the same

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By taking a walk through any pharmacy, supermarket or online store, it is easy to find melatonin as the definitive solution to sleep problems and with the great claim of being something totally natural that our body secretes. Pills, drops, infusions or even gummies are some of the presentations in which we find a product that for many should not be available to everyone and that, in their opinion, It should be regulated like any other medicine. The alarm voice. The scientific community and regulatory bodies They are starting to sound the alarm and the central idea is clear: melatonin is not as harmless as it is often promoted and, according to experts, it should be treated with the same rigor as a medication, and not as a simple vitamin supplement. The labels. One of the biggest problems with melatonin, especially in countries like the United States where it is regulated as a dietary supplement, is the lack of strict control over its production. Here a study published in 2017 put a worrying fact on the table when seeing that there are a great variability between what the labels say and what the bottle actually contains. And when analyzing multiple brands, researchers found products that contained from 83% less melatonin than declared, to an alarming 478% more. And if that were not enough, the study detected the presence of serotonin in several of these supplements, which is a neurotransmitter that is regulated. It’s not something magical. Marketing has positioned melatonin as a universal solution for sleep that can be consumed without almost any type of control or limit. But here the different reviews conclude that its benefits are modest, without having a powerful hypnotic effect, but rather that its real usefulness lies in adjusting specific circadian rhythm disorders such as jet lag, so use should be selective and not routine. Furthermore, it is not without risks. One of the most striking is the incompatibility that taking melatonin may have. with anticoagulant medicationswhich requires medical supervision. This is something that a priori is not known to patients as they do not go to the doctor for a prescription and have melatonin available on a supermarket shelf. The silent danger. The rise of melatonin in gummy form has brought with it very serious collateral damage, since children may see it as a candy, which has led to an increase in visits to the emergency room in the United States due to excessive consumption of melatonin. In Spain, The approach taken is more strict, since drug regulatory agencies evaluate the safety of this substance in the key of medicinealthough you can buy it almost without any type of control when going to any supermarket. The positive part here is that the highest concentrations of melatonin can only be prescribed by a doctor in consultation so that the pharmacy can make a master preparation, considering it as just another medication, which is what is requested internationally. Images | James Yarema Slaapwijsheid.nl In Xataka | Someone has said that melatonin damages the heart. The reality, according to science, is that we can be calm

Science has measured how dinner affects sleep and the result explains why you wake up craving sugar

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Almost everyone has experienced an annoying night tossing and turning in bed after a heavy dinner or fat. Under this pretext, science has gone one step further to demonstrate that the relationship between what we eat and how we rest is completely bidirectional, making what we eat determine whether we are going to rest better or worse. And the most surprising thing is that sleeping poorly can cause us to need to consume more sugar the next morning. A Granada studio. In February 2026 the magazine European Journal of Nutrition public a revealing investigation led by the University of Granada, where researchers monitored the habits of 146 adults with obesity. To do this, they used special watches to analyze accelerometry over a period of 14 days, to later cross-reference the activity data with dietary surveys of what had been consumed throughout the day. Prohibited items. One of the most interesting conclusions reached was undoubtedly the relationship between certain foods and poor rest. And to be clear, the elements that should be prohibited at our dinner are the following: Saturated fats. Eating excess protein and, more specifically, eating red meat for dinner. French fries, or fried foods in general, reduce the quality of sleep. Alcohol is one of the classics on this topic, since, although it generates a feeling of sleep, it destabilizes its quality. Large meals cause slow digestion and cause nighttime awakenings, preventing you from entering into a deep and restful sleep. Highly recommended foods. On the contrary, the passport to restful sleep seems to lie in another type of nutritional profile. Interestingly, carbohydrates, often demonized at night, were associated with better rest in this study. Although we are not talking about sugar directly from the sugar bowl, but rather complex carbohydrates, such as brown rice or potatoes, because help transport tryptophan to the brain. But in addition, the consumption of oily fish such as salmon or sardines is also recommended, since they are rich in omega-3 and especially tryptophan. The reasons. As we see, tryptophan is key in the diet to induce quality sleep, and it is no wonder. Biochemistry tells us that the tryptophan that we ingest through the diet is converted into serotonin and, subsequently, that serotonin is transformed into melatonin, the well-known sleep hormone. And for this chain to work we need very important factors such as vitamin B6, magnesium or zinc. But this also adds to a much less difficult digestion when talking about foods that are barely fatty and that do not require a lot of work on the part of our body and that do not invite reflux symptoms to appear that can be really annoying at night. Specific foods. With scientific support behind it We find the kiwi, since here a trial pointed out that eating two kiwis, one before going to sleep, reduces the time to fall asleep by 35%. But it also increases sleep duration by 13% due to its contribution of antioxidants and natural serotonin. Additionally, green leafy vegetables such as spinach, chard or lettuce provide magnesium and tryptophan. And if vegetables are not for you, we also have eggs, either boiled or in an omelet, which provides tryptophan and vitamin B6, along with the classic grilled chicken breast, which is also an excellent source of tryptophan. The rebound effect. However, the true clinical contribution of the research is to show that this problem is, in reality, a cycle that feeds on itself in a dangerous way. Here the researchers found that when participants experienced a poor night’s sleep, breakfast was marked by a higher consumption of sugars and a lower intake of fiber. Images | Slaapwijsheid.nl Debbie Tea In Xataka | We have accepted that “deep sleep” is the standard for sleep quality: science points in another direction

I want one to sleep in

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There are more and more technological gadgets for dogs and cats. We have talked about self-cleaning litter boxes, automatic feeders and waterers, GPS collars and even ‘Mi Band’ activity collars for cats. The Dreame company already has several products for pets to which it has just added the Dreame Moduloo Clima, a bed with air conditioning so that your dog or cat is neither cold nor hot. Not only does it have temperature control, the bed also has extra functions, such as a scale that allows you to see the weight of the animal in real time and also a sensor that adjusts the temperature depending on the environment. With how hot it is starting to get as soon as I see it, I thought: I need one in human size. Cool pets in summer and warm in winter The first thing that catches your attention is the “convertible” design. There are pets, especially cats, that prefer shelter-type covered beds, but in this case it also has one objective: it conserves heat better. The cover can be removed to convert it into an open bed that also takes up less space when stored. It supports up to 20 kilos, although its 54 centimeters in diameter may be a little short for medium dogs, so it is more recommended for cats or smaller dogs. Regarding its functions, the bed offers a temperature range that goes from 20 to 32 degrees centigrade and, according to Dreame, it adjusts the temperature in just 10 minutes after connecting it. As we said, it has a function that modifies the heat depending on the ambient temperature, to maintain a similar sensation throughout the day. On the front of the bed there is an LED screen where you can see the temperature and also the weight of the animalbecause yes, the bed incorporates a scale. One thing it lacks is app control; It would be very interesting if the evolution of each pet’s weight was stored to detect significant changes that could lead to possible health problems. Regarding safety, the bed connects to the currentso you will have to be careful and hide the cable in case your pet is one of those who tends to bite them. Dreame highlights that it uses an integrated semiconductor system that offers a uniform temperature without the risk of direct contact. At the moment we do not know when it will go on sale in Spain, but they have announced that it will cost 199 euros. In Xataka | Humans aren’t the only ones obsessed with screens. Cats also enjoy them and even have their own ‘Catflix’

This is how going to bed with a full stomach affects sleep

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Closing the computer late, shuffling home and sitting down to dinner at ten at night. For us it is a picture of customs; For the rest of Europe, an incomprehensible eccentricity. However, the shock is not only cultural but also biological. Although our social “normality” dictates that dinner is served after dark, our body tells a very different story. Evolutionarily, our body is not designed to digest large amounts of food when the sun has set. It’s not just about counting the calories we put on the plate; The real problem, the one that acts as a real time bomb for our health, is what the clock ticks when we put the fork in our mouth. Eating dinner late is altering our metabolism, sabotaging our quality of sleep and, silently, increasing our cardiovascular risk. Your pancreas doesn’t know that in Spain they have late dinners. To understand this phenomenon, we must look to the chrononutritionan emerging field of study investigating the close relationship between food intake and circadian rhythms. Our body works like an orchestra perfectly synchronized by light and darkness. By eating dinner at odd hours we are desynchronizing “peripheral watches” of vital cells located in the pancreas or liver. Meal timing acts as a critical signal for these peripheral biological clocks, which can modulate the quality of our sleep by regulating the rhythm of our central clock. The immediate consequence is a drastic worsening of glucose tolerance and insulin secretion. When we really should be sleeping. Here the body comes into conflict. On the one hand, there is a large release of cortisol (the well-known stress hormone) and, on the other, the release of melatonin is delayed, which is the master key to falling asleep. In fact, large-scale data support this: comprehensive analyzes of chrononutrition patterns reveal that later meal times—including the first meal, middle meal, and last meal of the day—as well as greater number of meals, are directly associated with higher scores on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), which translates into a worse rest. Added to this is a problem purely mechanical: A reduced time gap between the last meal and bedtime can lead to a prolonged sleep latency period, that is, we toss and turn more before falling asleep. And digesting while lying down is the perfect recipe for the appearance of gastric reflux, a discomfort that can ruin anyone’s night. You eat the same as your early-rising neighbor and you gain more weight. According to the study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolismadults who eat dinner at 10:00 p.m. burn 10% less fat and suffer a 20% higher blood sugar spike than those who eat dinner at 6:00 p.m., even if both groups eat exactly the same and go to bed at the same time. Alexis Supan, dietician at the Cleveland Clinic, summed it up perfectly: “When you eat late at night you are going against your body’s circadian rhythm.” The natural limit should be marked by the beginning of melatonin secretion. The researcher Marta Garaulet, a world reference in chrononutrition, has already demonstrated that people who eat later at midday lose less weight than those who eat early, even when they consume the same calories, expend the same energy and sleep the same. The time alone makes the difference. The consequences of ignoring this limit go far beyond the scale. A study led by the institute ISGlobalbased on cohort NutriNet-Santé with more than 100,000 participants, concluded that dining after 9:00 p.m. It is associated with increased cardiovascular risk, especially impacting the risk of cerebrovascular disease in women. On an emotional level, a recent meta-analysis from 2025 details that eating late worsens the rhythms of key neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine, increasing the risk of depression. On top of that we hit the same clock twice. But there is a modern factor that makes this scenario worse: screens. Not only do we eat dinner late, but we do so under the beam of our cell phones. Light of any kind suppresses melatonin, but as you warn harvardthe blue night light does it in a much more powerful way, blocking it for twice as long as other lights and moving our circadian rhythms out of phase by up to three hours. Recent clinical studies have demonstrated that exposure to blue LED light significantly suppresses melatonin secretion after two hours of exposure and maintains this suppression over time. We have a late dinner and then look at our phones in bed: a combination that our biological clock simply cannot accommodate. Our children are headed towards the same error. The problem worsens when we look at the new generations. The magazine The Lancet has warned that Spain could be the fourth country in the world with the highest childhood obesity in 2050. The VALORNUT project of the Complutense University has shed light on this: Late dinners and very long “eating windows” in children translate into more improvised diets, with lower nutritional value and worse cholesterol profiles. Furthermore, 60% of these children sleep fewer hours. The experts’ recommendation it’s clear: concentrate all meals in a period of less than 12 hours. The solution is to adjust the clock. So when should we have dinner? The golden rule agreed upon by experts is to allow between three and four hours to pass between the last meal and the time of going to sleep. If we take the Spanish average of going to bed around 00:30, we should be finishing dinner, at the latest, at 21:00. Here it is important to qualify the context. We have been cushioning this metabolic blow in part for decades thanks to a cultural pillar: the Spanish Mediterranean diet tends to make dinner a much lighter meal than the midday meal, leaving the energy weight of the day in earlier hours. A late, heavy, ultra-processed dinner followed by a trip straight to bed is not the same as a light dinner with some physical activity before going to sleep. … Read more

Actigraph, the Brazilian bracelet that traveled to the Moon to monitor the sleep of NASA astronauts and that you can also use

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Rodrigo Trevisan Okamoto, the Brazilian engineer and founding partner of the company Condor Instruments, knew that it was very important for the Artemis scientists to monitor the sleep of their astronauts. He also knew that NASA had acquired several activity bracelets marketed by his company years ago, whose objective is precisely to analyze users’ sleep patterns in an exhaustive way. Still, the news he received on April 1 was a shock and a surprise. Shortly after the Artemis mission took off successfully towards the Moon, received an email stating that some of its astronauts were wearing one of its bracelets. A bracelet to monitor your sleep. Nowadays there are many watches and bracelets that analyze users’ sleep. However, that of Condor Instrumentscalled Actigraph, has a key difference, since it is capable of detecting different wavelengths of light and establishing patterns with sleep. Not all colors of light influence our sleep the same way.. Blue light is the one that inhibits our melatonin levels the most and therefore prevents us from sleeping. On the other hand, in the absence of ideal darkness, warm light is a better option when we go to sleep. That’s what this bracelet that the Artemis II crew worked with throughout the mission does. More information. The bracelet has 10 sensors in total to detect light at different wavelengths. As for sleep and rest patterns, they are analyzed using sensors that detect movement in the arms. Stillness is interpreted as rest and movement as wakefulness. However, we will all agree that this alone is not a good parameter. We can be very still, but awake. However, it also measures other parameters, such as body temperature, which does tend to drop when we are asleep. Everything is analyzed together. Both in heaven and on Earth. The Actigraph is useful for any type of person. You don’t have to be an astronaut to use an activity bracelet. However, this particular one is especially useful for astronauts because their light-dark cycles are not the same as here on Earth. For example, a night on the Moon lasts around two weeks. On the International Space Station, however, there are several sunrises and sunsets in a single day. For this reason, it is especially interesting to confront sleep patterns with light patterns. A history with NASA. It is well known that space is not the best place to fall asleep. Not only because of the light issue. Also because it is a very stressful situation and because, in general, there is not much room for intimacy. In addition, it appears that microgravity also affects sleep, although the exact causes have not yet been determined. For all this, in 2023 NASA decided to buy several Actigraph. The Artemis missions were just beginning and they wanted to start looking for ways to analyze astronauts’ sleep for when the first manned voyage took place. They even met with Okamoto several times. However, at no time was it confirmed that his watches were going to be used. There was a possibility, but he only received confirmation immediately after takeoff. It must have been a high almost as high as the one the astronauts experienced. Okay, maybe I’ve gone too far with the comparison, but surely news like this will feel good to anyone. Image | NASA/Condor Instruments In Xataka | The far side of the Moon hid an icy secret. We finally know why it is so different from what we see

Human beings evolved to breed in tribes and sleep in sections. We have tried to do exactly the opposite and it is costing us our health.

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It’s three in the morning, the light of a state-of-the-art baby monitor flickers in the darkness and an exhausted mother tries by all means to get her son to fall asleep again to finally achieve those long-awaited eight hours of sleep in one go. The room is full of amenities, but she feels a knot in her stomach. She is surrounded by technology, but feels more alone than ever. If you ask in your group of friends or on any internet forum how exhausting parenting is today, the answer is unanimous: “It is extremely exhausting and constant.” However, science and history tell us that our ancestors probably did not suffer from this level of sleep deprivation, much less this suffocating loneliness. And here comes the great paradox of our era. We might think that the problem is a lack of male involvement, but the data show a different picture. As we recently explained in Xatakaparents millennials Today they spend approximately four times more time caring for their children than parents of the generation of the baby boom. In countries like Spain, policies have taken a historic leap by equating paternity and maternity leave to 19 weeks. The father, culturally and legally, is at home. So why are parents still on the brink of collapse? The answer lies not in a lack of will, but in our biology: we are fighting a losing battle against millions of years of evolution. Human beings evolved to breed in tribes and sleep in sections. Our modern society demands exactly the opposite from us, and it is costing us our health. The end of the tribe and the ancestral dream To understand what has happened to us, we must look to the past. As he explains to the BBC evolutionary anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, the human species would never have survived if mothers had not had “alloparents”—grandmothers, uncles, older brothers, and other members of the community—to care for babies who were born extremely immature. Studies in traditional populations they confirm it: In hunter-gatherer groups such as those in the Congo Basin, babies spend much of the day in arms, with alternative caregivers to the mother providing up to 43% of the baby’s direct care. But not only the tribe has vanished; We have also altered our natural way of resting. In fact, the idea that we should have an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep It is a “modern invention”since before the Industrial Revolution and the arrival of artificial light, the biological pattern of humanity was the biphasic sleep or segmented: people slept for the first part at dusk, woke up in the early morning for a couple of hours (which they took advantage of to chat, pray or take care of the fire), and went back to sleep until dawn. In today’s industrial societies, waking up at three in the morning is diagnosed as insomnia and generates deep anxiety. However, when researchers examine current hunter-gatherer tribes — whose sleep patterns last between 5.7 and 7.1 hours and are full of microawakenings — discover something fascinating: They don’t consider it a problem. The loneliness epidemic and mental burden This break with our evolutionary past is having devastating consequences. In different investigations they talk that we are facing a true epidemic of isolation: today, 65% of parents feel lonelys, a figure that shoots up to 77% in the case of single-parent families. This “clinical loneliness” is not just a passing sadness. It is triggering Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (known in English as PMADs), which according to medical research affect up to 17.7% of mothers worldwide. Lack of support and isolation increase the risk of depression and cardiovascular problems. In its most extreme cases, psychiatric causes (including suicides and overdoses) have become one of the main causes of maternal mortality. A slab that disproportionately crushes single-parent families, racialized people or those at risk of exclusion and with financial stress, who lack the economic resources to outsource this care. And behind closed doors, the mirage of equality in the couple continues to take its toll. Although the modern father “helps” more than ever, the “mental load”—the planning, conception, and anticipation of family needs— continues to fall overwhelmingly on women. Researcher Eve Rodsky defines it perfectly: today’s mothers act as “project managers” where their partners are often “kind subordinates” waiting for instructions. The result is a burnout (professional burnout syndrome) applied to parenting. Curiously, this parental hyperpresence, born of anxiety, is also harming the little ones. The so-called “helicopter parents”, who fly over their children’s every movement to avoid frustration, are impeding the neurological development of their prefrontal cortex (in charge of solving problems). As studies warnthis has caused psychiatric admissions of adolescents for anxiety and depression disorders to skyrocket at an alarming rate. The verdict of science If we look for culprits for this epidemic of fatigue, science gives us a key clue. In modern societies, between 10% and 30% of people live with chronic insomnia. But if we look at current hunter-gatherer communities (such as the Hadza, the San or the Tsimane), this problem is practically a myth: it barely touches 2%. University of California (UCLA) researcher Jerome Siegel summed it up very well in the pages of Scientific American: The problem is that we have erased the natural regulators of sleep from the map. By living locked up, we no longer let our body feel the nighttime drop in temperature, an essential biological brake for rest. For his part, David Samson, evolutionary anthropologist interviewed by the BBCargues that it is our rigid expectation of perfect sleep that fatigues us. Samson lived with the Hadza tribe in Tanzania and found that its members consider their sleep “good” despite waking up frequently. Instead of getting up, turning on lights, and looking at the clock, they simply accept waking up as natural. This vision links with the proposal of James McKenna and Lee Gettler, anthropologists at the University of Notre Dame. As they explain in their own studyhave … Read more

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