Already in the morning? Yet we have the impression of having gone to bed a few minutes ago. Maybe the time change. It was two weeks ago. Five o’clock in the morning, I have chills, my teeth chatter and I turn up the sound… No offense to the group Chagrin d’Amour, it is 7 am, after checking the alarm clock, the cell phone, the second alarm clock which rings in shrill mode and the alarm clock which screams the news. Cold shower to wake up to, strong coffee. Nothing works. We doze in the metro. Already arrived ? An espresso on the way out. Filthy. The badge, the building. The hive is full of noises. Who did I say “hello” to? What meeting in ten minutes? It’s sometimes hard for a manager to set an example of happy France, which gets up early. In my next life, I will own a nightclub, because there I will emerge around 11 am with the first craving of the day. I’m really not in the morning. “We are all subject to the functioning of our own biological clock, which controls our chronotype: going to bed early/rising early, or going to bed late/rising late or neutral”, confirms Doctor Claire Colas des Francs. This sleep specialist gives tips on how not to experience jet lag at the same time every day.
“Sleep is often the least of our worries. It’s a mistake”
According to the expert, 80% of people have a neutral chronotype when 10% of the population is really morning and 10% really evening. Nothing to do: it’s genetic. Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young were awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on the molecular mechanisms regulating circadian rhythms, known as the “biological clock”. Translation of Claire Colas des Francs: “PER3 is the gene that controls the clock and allows you to adjust in the morning or in the evening. When you have a confirmed chronotype, a misinterpretation can lead to a desynchronization of your clock, as for a orchestra out of tune. The result is a disturbance of vigilance when one is sleep-debted, both quantitatively and qualitatively”. We are drowsy, we have trouble concentrating, memorizing. It can also have more serious health effects, including carcinogenic risks, according to the World Health Organization. Other consequences: a tendency to gain weight and a cardiovascular risk – in particular increased myocardial infarction. “Like chronic insomnia, sleeping less than 5 hours a night is a risk factor for heart attack”. However, beware of dramatization: “for these risks to be proven, it is not only necessary to consider its chronotype, but another major element: the duration and quality of sleep. Over the course of our existence, with family and social constraints, we can make our chronotype evolve if we don’t mistreat it too much. But in a performance society, sleep is often the least of our worries. It’s a mistake”.
The keys to sleep
The first cause of fatal accidents on the motorway is drowsiness which catches up with those who are sleep deprived. However, 91% of French people say they lack sleep in 2023, compared to 82% in 2018 (Qapa-Adecco, March 2023). In addition, 59% of them admit to making mistakes at work with fatigue. It is not a fatality. Claire Colas des Francs recommends observing your spontaneous rhythm after a week of vacation, when you respect your natural rhythm to understand how your clock works in order to spot whether you are more morning or more evening and know how many hours of sleep are necessary for us. The average is 7h45, but it goes from 6h to 9h. Only 37% of French people sleep more than 7 hours a night, 26% go to bed after midnight and 33% between 11 p.m. and midnight (ibid). Always tired when you wake up and during the day? It is worth consulting your attending physician, a specialist and informing yourself (Morpheus network Or National Institute of Sleep and Vigilance).
In addition, the “monitoring of the shift worker” such as night work requires specific and close monitoring by occupational medicine. Last advice to rehabilitate and to share with your team: sleep more and abandon screens near your eyes, 1 hour before sleeping because the light they emit is an awakening signal for our clock, which will block the synthesis of melatonin, necessary for the quality of our sleep. “To sleep well and have a good quality of sleep, you shouldn’t eat in your bed either… or telework there!”