Sleeping well is essential, as sleep allows the body and mind to recover and function correctly. In the case of children, sleep takes on even greater importance because it is key to their knowledge and cognitive development. As explained at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital's Health School, babies and children need deep and restorative sleep to process what they have learned during the day, consolidate memory, and develop their motor and emotional skills. In adolescence, the hormonal changes typical of this stage can make it difficult for them to maintain adequate sleep schedules, which can have consequences on their mood and academic performance.

A former colleague told me not long ago that she was surprised when she heard I had a daughter because she'd never seen me as "a reproductive man." I laughed. It didn't seem like an insult, but rather a description. And, in fact, that possibility had always been there. The idea of ​​having children amused me, but until recently it was an abstract and distant concept.

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.

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.

Summer is synonymous with vacations, the beach, and relaxation, but also, often, with sweating. In recent years, torrid nights have become routine. Techniques such as creating air currents and walking through green spaces can help you avoid sweating as much during the day. But what should we do at night?

Emilia Redolar, a neuroscientist and professor of health sciences at the UOC, explains that the optimal nap should last 20 minutes, although we can extend it to an hour and a half without it being harmful. It's after 90 minutes that a nap could have negative effects, as it can generate mental overload and negatively impact sleep the following night.

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.

Adolescence is a crucial period for cognitive development, and sleep hours may influence memory, attention, and language function. This is the suggestion of a new study from the University of Cambridge and Fudan University in China, which details that young people who sleep longer (even just a few minutes apart) may have better brain function. The results were published this Tuesday in the journalCell Reports.

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.

Sleep and rest are important for your health. Marina is calmer, and we don't need to insist too much, but Pau always has a few hours to do what he wants to do. Luckily, once he falls asleep, he rarely wakes up. The little one still calls us almost every night to keep her company.

Lack of sleep affects our mental and physical health. Disorders such as insomnia, apnea, and narcolepsy affect the daily lives of those who suffer from them, as a series of essential processes occur while we sleep. More and more people are accustomed to using screens in bed before going to sleep, which disrupts our sleep and, by extension, our health. A study by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health has determined that using a cell phone one hour before bedtime increases the risk of insomnia by 59% and reduces sleep time by almost half an hour each night, about 24 minutes. These are the conclusions published this Monday by the journal Frontiers in Psychiatry.

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.

The writer Vladimir Nabokov was horrified at having to forcibly lose consciousness eight hours every day. Without sleep, however, he would not have written anything resembling a masterpiece such as Pale Fire, because his brain would not have been capable of it. Sleep is essential for the proper functioning of the brain. At the same time, the brain regulates when we fall asleep and when we wake up by means of a hormone called hypocretin. Lluís de Lecea, professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University, is one of the scientists who discovered it.