It’s a warning signal from your brain.

in a world where insomnia is the order of the dayhearing people saying the phrase ‘it’s like putting your head on the pillow and going cold’ can make you very envious. An attitude that in some cases is seen as a great skilland that certainly seems like an evolutionary advantage. However, science has a much darker reading: it is not efficiency, it’s debt.

The thermometer of fatigue. In sleep medicine, the time between getting ready to sleep (such as turning off the light in the bedroom) and entering the first phase of sleep is called Sleep Onset Latency (SUN).

A time that has been measured to establish how long is normal for a person, and science estimates it between 10 and 15 minutes. That is to say, between turning off the light and lying down until we start to sleep, the normal thing for an adult is that about 10 minutes pass.

When we are below. If there is a range, being above or below it can trigger alarms, such as when the value in a blood test is not within the normal ranges. If it is below, the brain enters a state of “homeostatic hyperexcitability” according to research done for the Sleep Foundation.

By this they mean that when the system is so desperate to recover, it ends collapsing when given the chance. And that is why we have three different stages depending on how long it takes us to sleep:

• The normal range is between 10 and 18 minutes.
• We speak of pathological drowsiness when it lasts less than 8 minutes.
• We refer to severe sleep deprivation when we spend less than five minutes.

The brain shuts down very quickly. The idea, replicated by experts and based on principles of chronobiology, suggests that instant sleep is the response to chronic restriction. In this way, if for weeks or months you sleep less than necessary, the body accumulates a “bill” that tries to charge himself in every microbreak.

Science has wanted to delve into this aspect, and that is why different studies that have been published in Nature and PMC link this ultra-short latency not only with fatigue, but with metabolic alterations and a decrease in cognitive performance. That is why the idea that falling asleep quickly is synonymous with better rest is completely wrong.

In fact, research shows that people with this “short latency” often suffer from involuntary lapses of attention and accumulated fatigue which, in environments such as driving or precision work, can be fatal.

A long process. The sleep debt is not erased with a night of ‘bingeing’ in bed and getting up at 3 in the afternoon, but studies suggest that this latency can persist during the day. It all depends on what sleep deprivation we have faced our body with.

But logically you also have to be careful with this false belief of having rested a lot because the onset of sleep is very rapid. The quality of sleep is only measured by its phases, but in no case does the variable of how quickly I enter the sleep phase come into play.

What needs to be done. In the case of a person who falls exhausted at the first yawn, the first thing is to check sleep hygiene. But also be attentive to other indicators such as a possible sleep apneasince this value of sleeping quickly or in any situation is an indication of the presence of this disease that can be really serious and difficult to diagnose. The important thing is that one of the initial symptoms What must be checked in these cases is this poor rest.

Images | Shane

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