We should all get a little more sleep, especially during the week. What's not normal is seeing the faces of some students first thing in the morning. Not to mention those who simply oversleep or arrive late. Many get up alone at home and, in their rush, don't have breakfast and don't have time to get ready for lunch at recess.

It is said that in current times there is a A veritable "epidemic" of sleep problemsScreens, stress, anxiety... Falling asleep has become a true act of resistance. However, sleep has been an essential act in the evolution ofHomo sapiens Since the dawn of humanity, only during these hours of deep rest can we repair the brain, consolidate memory, or reorganize our emotional circuits.

You get home at dusk, tired from a double shift if you have children, and you promise yourself that, considering how hard it was to get up in the morning—as you do every day, in fact—you'll go to bed early tonight. But, one more night, when everything stops and the kids are finally asleep, you just can't manage it: that book you're reading, that series you're hooked on, taking the time to check social media and interact with the people you follow and who follow us, having time to chat with your partner after dinner, preparing for the next day... And you're back at the end of the day... And the next day, at work, at school, or at college, you remind yourself again that you have to go to bed earlier because the accumulated tiredness is starting to affect you. Does this situation sound familiar? Do you recognize it? Sleep procrastination –revenge bedtime procrastination, as it has been dubbed in English—is a situation that, to a greater or lesser extent, young and old, we have all experienced.

While we sleep, the body recovers from the day's experiences. Restful sleep is therefore essential for physical and mental preparation to face the new day. However, the reality is that one in three children and adolescents do not get the necessary sleep, which impacts their physical, mental, and emotional health. According to the latest FAROS report from the School of Health at the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Barcelona, ​​17% of children go to school sleepy and 4% fall asleep in class. For adolescents, the figures are even more alarming, as 52% admit to going to school having slept less than 8 hours, and 84% have difficulty waking up.

If there's one thing I envy, it's the sight of a mother or father waking their baby. In fact, I think I could pinpoint the profound change I experienced as a result of becoming a mother on this moment: waking up (with or without a headache, with or without a hangover, having slept well or badly, on a clear day or a rough one) with joy. While my children were little, every awakening was magnificent. I would go—almost run—to their room, silently watch them sleep, enjoying that feeling of absolute peace I've never found anywhere else, and then I would devote myself to the wonderful task of waking them up: touching their soft, warm skin, placing my hand on their chest to let the rise and fall of the rise and fall of the rise and fall of the rise, one fine day, in a voice that I don't know where it came from and that I've never recovered.

Having a child transforms you and changes the world you know. The way to explain this metamorphosis was to turn the characters inThe future is a small flame in animals. I made the main family hedgehogs. I thought it was a good metaphor for how I felt. I'd built myself a shell of spikes, not to harm anyone, but to protect myself from them.

Some people find it difficult to get rid of emotionally uncomfortable thoughts or memories, while others can do so more easily. Typically, these thoughts or memories appear suddenly, involuntarily and intrusively, often persistently, and interfere with their mental or emotional activity. They tend to be negative, worrying or stressful in content, and can be difficult to control or ignore. Intrusive thoughts are characteristic of various psychological illnesses such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder; and, at the same time, having them promotes mental states of sadness, anxiety, anguish and depression. On a neuropsychological level, there is still not much data on why some people have many more intrusive thoughts than others, especially with regard to the ability we can have to block them consciously.

"Even if we sleep badly, it is important to get up at the same time so as not to fool the brain about when it is day and when it is night", explains Sandra Giménez, a doctor in the sleep unit of the Hospital de Sant Pau. "We are a 24-hour clock, and we can't make it work differently on weekdays and weekends", says Odile Romero, head of the sleep unit at Vall d'Hebron Hospital.

You don't have to be very clever to see that the fifth wave of the pandemic will be that of the psychological effects for which there is no universal vaccine. The permanent presence of death, fear, exhaustion, the disappearance of expectations, the impoverishment of so many and the anguish of all will be difficult to deal with in a world and a country where mental health is still a taboo and where public support for this type of illness is clearly insufficient and socially ignored, despite its seriousness.

Sleep is a natural and necessary state of rest of the body and mind in which consciousness decreases and sensory activity is relatively inhibited. The response to external stimuli is minimal, at least the mild ones, however, despite the state of relative unconsciousness, the level of brain activity remains high. In fact, this is the main difference between sleep and other states of unconsciousness, such as coma. All vertebrates sleep and at least some insects, such as flies and ants, are known to sleep, indicating that sleep is of transcendental importance for the life of animals. However, not all animals sleep in the same way.