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Caffeine is the psychostimulant the more used at the world, but one again ignores how it acts on the sleep after 40 years, "observes Julie Carrier, a professor to the Department of Psychology of the university of Montreal.

And it is what the searcher will tempt to determine, in the setting of a survey that she directs currently in the center of survey of the sleep of the hospital of the Sacred Heart of Montréal1.

A more fragile sleep while aging

Several studies on the sleep showed that from about forty, the sleep is weakened by the gradual loss of "slow deep sleep."

"This stage of the sleep occurs in the beginning of the night and constitute the period the deepest and intense, during which the brain is the most synchronized", explain Julie Carrier.

One does not know the role that the slow deep sleep plays precisely, but it is associated to the hormone of growth and, probably also, to the regeneration of energy, according to the searcher.

However, caffeine could weaken this stage of the sleep more, at the time of life where the quality of the sleep decreases little by little.

He / it is acquired that a "dose" of caffeine in the evening disrupts sleep, but he / it can be in the same way some to another moment of the day. "For example, a worker of night who takes a coffee at 5 o’clock of the morning will alter his sleep of recovery", she / it illustrates.

Also, even at people having a timetable of day, took the morning coffee can alter the repairing sleep during the night.

A Sleep "Connected"

In the setting of the survey that she / it direct, Julie Carrier tempts to measure the effect of caffeine on the sleep of middle age people, with participating adepts of caffeine and others who do not consume some, therefore.

Our colleague journalist Rene Leon of Cotret, who does not take any caffeine, was suitable to the experience: he / it slept three nights in the clinic of the sleep of the hospital of the Sacred Heart, at the rate of one night per week , During three weeks.

To every session, one welcomed it while installing close to him about thirty electrodes on the head. Thereafter, he / it had to do different tests of alertness and performance and had to provide samples of saliva to different intervals. Then 30 to 22 hours, he / it got in bed.

"I have been astonished to achieve that, in spite of the presence of electrodes, I slept more or less normally. I am myself there more quickly than I would have believed it and I felt accustomed neither bread nor annoyance", underline the volunteer.

The experience will also have allowed him to know of in more on his / her / its own sleep. "I now know with certainty that I do not make of the sleep apnea, that I fall asleep in about ten minutes, that I have six periods of dreams on average per night and that my share of really deep sleep is the least that well one of a young man of 25 years ", pursues Rene Leon of Cotret.

And the journalist’s curiosity did not make him default: "I liked to tempt to discover what week I had received the tablets of caffeine or the placebo tablets. Did I feel" more effective "to the tests of vigilance during the second week and did I take a lot of time to lull me after being wakened me toward 3 hours of the morning up … But this was caffeine or the placebo effect? I am in a hurry to know! ", He / it concludes.

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