Poor sleep is an underdiagnosed problem. In Spain, more than half of Spaniards do not sleep well and use the weekend to recover those lost hours of sleep, according to the Spanish Sleep Society. Come on, wake up feeling not having rested at all or end the day totally busted is the day to day of millions of people in our country. Now, this issue of great importance has reached the Congress of Deputies, where a Proposal Not of Law (PNL) has been approved that urges the Government to take measures to stop the phenomenon.
We don’t sleep well. The percentage of Spaniards who sleep poorly is 58%, surpassing that of those who sleep well (42%). Of those, 13% do not rest “at all well”, according to the survey How do the Spanish sleep?, made by Ipsos for the Spanish Sleep Society. With these data it is shown that the quality of sleep of the Spaniards is not even remotely optimal, since they sleep an average of 6.8 hours during the week.
Looking for sleep aids. Other data on the table that gives us a good clue about the problem is the amount of sleeping pills that are sold in pharmacies in our country. And things look bad: in the last year 11.8 million boxes were sold (of compounds without a prescription, ranging from drugs such as Dormidina to supplements with melatonin), according to the consulting firm Health Market Research (HMR). Those are 100,000 more than in 2021 and 800,000 more than in 2020. It is a millionaire market that has moved 130.2 million euros in just one year.
As mentioned in this article from El PaísGiven the scarcity of resources in primary medical care, many doctors end up prescribing this type of medication, which is indicated for specific cases and which takes longer than it should: between four and 10 weeks. Something that explains why Spain is the country with the highest consumption of benzodiazepines in the world.
The non-law proposition. The Health Commission has approved a Proposal not of Law (PNL) that urges the Government to take measures around the training of health workers, clinical guidelines and the promotion of healthy habits among the population. The project, approved with the votes of all the parties, except the abstentions of Vox and United We Can, wants to solve the impact it has on the quality of life of the population, improving the quality of care, health and reversing the negative effects it has about the health system.
What is it for? So that family doctors are better trained and have the knowledge to order certain types of treatments that only 24 centers provide in Spain. Until now, sleep disorders have not been a specialty in itself and have almost no weight in the Medicine career. Therefore, it is necessary to broaden the path of those studies that are increasingly relevant in consultations.
Insomnia, that major evil. 75% of Spaniards wake up at least once a night, and 3 out of 10 directly state that they suffer from insomnia. Sleeping well should be normal, but the data indicates that for the Spaniards that supposes an effort. 44.2% sleep seven hours every day of the week, that is, the minimum recommended by experts, according to this other Imop-Berbes poll. 24.8% state that they sleep the recommended minimum between four and six days a week, 18.4% do so between one and three days and 12.6% never.
Regarding the factors that most influence the quality of sleep, A large part of those surveyed cite stress as the main problem (50.9%), a percentage that increases to 92.7% in unemployed people. In second place is illness or age (16.3%), lack of time (9%), bad habits or lack of routines (6.8%) and exposure to screens (1.5%).
Problems. Sleep is also very important to prevent health risks. As its quality decreases, the risk of suffering from a good number of diseases and withstand effects ranging from cardiovascular to cognitive problems, through an increase in accidents and a drop in school and work performance.
In addition, sleep is involved in countless physiological processes, so its poor quality is related to health problems such as metabolic problems such as diabetes and obesity, neurocognitive dysfunctions and mental health problems.
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