Bad habits do not help to get quality sleep during the summer months. Dr. Jesús Escribà, Neurophysiologist and member of Top Doctors, believes that in general, at this time of the year we tend to have more disordered eating and sleeping habits: we eat and drink more, and in some cases our naps are too long and even take place at ungodly hours, which favors the onset of insomnia at night.
Avoiding these behaviors is key to getting a good night’s rest. Summer is when we should recover the hours of sleep that we have dragged throughout the year, although this is not usually the case for everyone. At least a quarter of the population has more problems sleeping during the hottest months of the year, as Dr. Escribà states. The ideal temperature for falling asleep is between 18 and 22 degrees Celsius, far from the 25 or 27 that we have on summer nights, a factor that we suffer from. According to the doctor, this causes “the duration of sleep cycles to be shorter”.
Consequences of insomnia
As a general rule, it is women who are most affected by this problem. The consequences of summer insomnia range from irritability, to loss of reflexes, to anxiety and fatigue, and continued tiredness. All this causes changes in mood and affects the sufferer’s behavior.
Summer insomnia is the most common medical condition during the summer months, and is caused by the change in lifestyle habits and rising temperatures. Its scientific explanation, in the doctor’s words, lies in the fact that “sleep is related to the body’s secretion of melatonin”, and this increases at night. Because there are more hours of daylight, he adds, “the melatonin we produce decreases, a fact that does not favor the conciliation of sleep”.