Insomnia is a serious illness, in some cases chronic, affecting 1 in 5 French people.

If you have difficulty sleeping, wake up at night and sometimes have difficulty falling asleep, if you wake up too early in the morning and feel tired, you may suffer from insomnia. Insomnia affects your daily life. During the day, it is usually accompanied by fatigue, difficulty concentrating or paying attention, but also irritability.

How to combat insomnia?

A good night’s sleep is essential for your well-being.

Insomnia is a very common sleep disorder in Western countries. It is often caused by stress and anxiety and can quickly turn your nights into nightmares.

It can be temporary, or chronic when it occurs more than 3 times a week for more than 3 months. It corresponds to a decrease in the quality and/or quantity of sleep which is then insufficiently recovered.

People with stress or anxiety are 7-10 times more likely to suffer from chronic insomnia than others.

Unfortunately, this insomnia becomes harmful to your well-being and health.

What is a good night’s sleep?

The number of hours of sleep required varies according to age and individuals. Most adults need about 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night.

However, it is considered that the time it takes an individual to fall asleep should be between 20 and 30 minutes.

It should be noted that if night-time awakenings are completely normal, their total should be less than 20 minutes.

There are many causes of insomnia. A vast majority of insomnia is linked to more or less severe psychological disorders, such as stress, anxiety or depression.

It’s a vicious circle if the insomnia episodes are repeated every day because those affected are anxious at the thought of having a very bad night. Sleep then becomes more difficult to find.

Symptoms include difficulty falling asleep, light or irregular sleep, waking up at night, nightmares and dark thoughts – it is often the anxiety linked to personal or professional problems that encourages insomnia.

Insomnia is particularly present at night at bedtime, but can cause people to wake up very early in the morning without them being able to fall back to sleep. In the early morning, you will feel tired, irritable and the day may be accompanied by drowsiness, which is difficult to manage. Attention and memory problems and difficulties concentrating during the day are also generally observed.

Lumière bleue écran What should I do to combat insomnia?

In the vast majority of cases, correcting bad habits is sufficient to encourage falling asleep.

New strategies and behaviours need to be put in place, including:
Establish a regular, consistent bedtime ritual that helps you gradually return to normal sleep, and adhere to regular bedtime and waking hours.

In the evening, avoid overly large meals, use of caffeine and alcohol that fragments sleep and promotes night-time awakening, or tobacco.

Exercise within four hours before going to sleep is not recommended.

Blue light disrupts normal melatonin secretion (the sleep hormone) and disturbs the biological clock, which is involved in sleep regulation.

You must therefore absolutely avoid (and teenagers as well) evenings spent in front of a screen (video game, internet, smartphone, etc.), which go against the process of falling asleep.

Promote an environment favourable to sleep, with a quiet room, a temperature close to 18° and as dark as possible.

Light plays a major role!

Relaxation and luminotherapy are obviously the preferred avenues.

This is because the biological clock is involved in sleep regulation. Our internal clock, which defines the alternation between wakefulness and sleep according to the circadian rhythm (a biological rhythm lasting 24 hours), is subject to the influence of external factors such as work, rest or activity, diet, exercise but also environmental factors such as light and sound.

The arrival of winter and the drop in light, night-time exposure to tablets or smartphones, the change in time and time difference have a significant impact on the biological clock and hinder the secretion of melatonin, the hormone that promotes sleep.

Light will therefore allow the disturbed circadian rhythm to be resynchronised and the secretion of neurotransmitters involved in the circadian clock and in the regulation of sleep and waking to be restored.

Therefore, during the daytime period, blue light will promote serotonin, dopamine and cortisol secretion and inhibit melatonin release.

During the night period, red light will promote melatonin secretion and inhibit the release of serotonin, dopamine and cortisol.

Terraillon has therefore designed solutions for sleeping and waking up, scientifically validated by clinical studies and the European Sleep Center.

Thanks to the combination of light and adapted sounds, Terraillon offers you a wide range of light-based sleep and awakening activators that allow you to sleep smoothly with the cardiac coherence programme and wake up naturally in great shape with a dawn simulator.

We mainly rely on light therapy because light is a powerful regulator of our biological clock, and therefore our sleep.

Lumière rouge Dreamer pour s'endormirThe sleep activator:

Dreamer, uses red light because unlike other colours (including blue light), it is the only colour that does not block the secretion of melatonin, a hormone that promotes sleeping.

Two sleeping programmes are offered:

Cardiac coherence combines light and breathing exercises. Breathe in and out to the rhythm of light to relax and fall asleep quickly

We stimulate the baroreflex, a small physiological mechanism that helps restore balance in the autonomic nervous system. Therefore, you will quickly switch from the alert state (activation of the sympathetic nervous system) to the resting state (activation of the parasympathetic nervous system) by setting your breathing pattern to the light intensity in order to bring the nervous system to a sleeping state.

Sunset mode uses orange hues that change to warm red to help you fall asleep smoothly

With practice and after a while, you regain confidence and are able to fall asleep peacefully and without anxiety.

éveil lumière Wake-up light:

The Homni wake-up light,  simulates waking up and going to sleep so that you can wake up and fall asleep smoothly. The wake-up and fall asleep programmes have been developed in collaboration with the European Sleep Center. Blue shades in the morning for a gentle transition into the day and red hues at bedtime (to avoid disturbing the secretion of the sleep hormone melatonin).

So you can dig deeper and think differently about your nights with new mobile apps and new objects dedicated to sleep.

Follow our tips and tricks to make it easier for you to fall asleep and… finally you’ll have the pleasure of sleeping again.

Good night, sweet dreams!