The dream is the fourth pillar of health, along with nutrition, physical activity, good social relations and good mental health..
It is a stage or period of the day in which neurotransmitters and receptors are replenished, memory is ordered, cardiovascular function is restored, detoxification mechanisms are activated, and the damage of wakefulness is repaired. That's why sleeping well, undisturbed and long enough increases the quality of life.
There are a number of structures and neuromodulators in the brain that are crucial for the maintenance of vigil, such as noradrenaline, serotonin, acetylcholine and orexin or hypocretin, among the best known.
These are factors that can determine or worsen illnesses of different kinds. Failure to sleep adequate hours is associated with disorders such as depression, anxiety and fatigue. In addition, numerous studies also consider it to be a turning point for neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer'sthe Parkinson, the dementia; endocrine disorders such as diabetes mellitus and obesity. Lack of sleep is also associated with cardiovascular disorders such as high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes. So many should rethink the consequences of nightlife.
In the same way, it influences the control and proper functioning of the immune system and is even associated with the development of different types of tumour processes.
The Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University (USA) evidence that sleep is fundamental to preserving heart health, as is daily exercise.
"Recognising the dream as a an integral part of cardiovascular health is a transformative step towards reducing the global burden of these diseases, the leading cause of death, and reducing the health disparities associated with them", as they stated at Journal of the American Heart Association researchers at Columbia University.
Thus, strokes, obesity, diabetes, depression and anxiety, decreased brain function, memory loss, as well as weaker fertility and immune systemThe list of disorders related to sleep deprivation is long.
Also, by staying up late for several weekends, the molecular clock in the liver of the subjects studied was desynchronised and it was enough to present a clearly more inflamed liverwith more steatosis and with important changes in their lipid and glucose metabolism.
Getting enough sleep is essential because our internal molecular clocks are very old since the beginning of time. evolutionary point of view. They form a set of intracellular processes common to all living things. We are just another organism among the inhabitants of this battered planet. We have circadian clocks in most of our cells that control sleep, but also many other processes, such as the way we metabolise food.
During the night the brain is detoxified and drained by the glymphatic system which, roughly speaking, involves interstitial fluid flow (between brain cells) managed by glial cells (we have more than neurons), and they perform the same function in the brain (waste drainage) as the lymphatic system does in the rest of the body's organs. Through this drainage, waste products of different nature, of neuronal, astrocytic or haematological origin, or even substances related to fungal and microbial infections found in the brain interstitium, can be eliminated.
The following are listed wasteosomes with lymphatic insufficiency: large numbers of them are related to ageing, cardiovascular disorders and poor sleep quality, all of which are factors related to lymphatic insufficiency. The lymphatic system shows a marked circadian rhythmThe lymphatic system, and its cleansing function occurs mainly during sleep; therefore chronic sleep disorders, not sleeping 7 to 8 hours a day, are related to lymphatic insufficiency.
*José Antonio Rodríguez Piedrabuena is a specialist in Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis, and in management training, group and couple therapies.