Young Canarians, the worst sleepers in Spain

The report ‘How do young people sleep? Habits and prevalence of sleep disorders in Spainpresented by the MAPFRE Foundation, the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN) and the Spanish Sleep Society (SES), also shows that, with regard to their lifestyle habits, they are lthe most coffee consumers (42%), cola soft drinks with caffeine (56%), of energy drinks (42%) and hypnotics and cannabis (fifteen%).

At the national level, the report highlights that the 83.5% of young Spaniards have any nocturnal symptoms of insomniathat 61% voluntarily lose hours of sleep to carry out leisure or personal interest activities and that, although, in general, they consider that sleep is as important as taking care of their diet or practicing physical exercise, only 24% acknowledge sleeping well and enough.

In the presentation of the study, the result of a survey conducted with 3,405 participantsEva Arranz, a doctor at Fundación MAPFRE, and Marta Rubio, principal researcher and neurologist at the Parc Taulí University Hospital in Sabadell, participated, who stressed that «Lack of rest is a serious problem among young people, especially because they are in a vulnerable period of brain development and maturation, and because of the impact it can have on their academic performance. Likewise, he has indicated that “lack of sleep also harms the elderlyespecially because of the consequences it has on your work performance, mood and health conditionand whose consequences are a greater risk of suffering from cardiovascular, metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases.

How to sleep better?

To procure sleep between 7 and 9 hours, maintain a regular schedule throughout the week, get up at the same time, go to bed when the first signs of drowsiness appear, avoid heavy dinners, as well as alcohol, coffee, energy drinks and tobacco; and unplug electronic devices at least half an hour to an hour before going to bed. They are some of the recommendations from experts to have good quality sleep.