Bedrooms as regenerative stations

The Pasqual Maragall Foundation has just published a report led by Dr. Laura Stankeviciute and Dr. Oriol Grau, which concludes that "poor sleep quality is associated with changes in the areas of the brain that are vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease."

The study monitored 171 cognitively healthy individuals over a period of up to two weeks, using an actigraph to assess the sleep quality of each participant. An actigraph is a device that measures how we sleep based on movement and light patterns, providing objective indicators.

In parallel, brain MRI scans and cerebrospinal fluid analyses were performed to quantify levels of amyloid and tau proteins, recognised as the main biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease.

The study confirmed that when sleep is of poor quality, reduced cortical thickness is observed in certain areas of the brain, particularly in the temporal lobe, one of the regions most vulnerable to the disease. Another finding was that these effects are more pronounced in women than in men.

The research suggests that poor sleep quality emerges as a potentially modifiable risk factor associated with Alzheimer's disease. On a positive note, it is also a factor we can act upon. As Dr. Oriol Grau notes, "if we monitor and improve sleep in middle age and old age, we could protect our brains — and do so in time."

This observation takes us back to 2019, when HAUS, together with Neuroelectrics, presented a research project aimed at securing resources to monitor how sleep quality, cycles and stages were altered in relation to CO₂ levels accumulated in a bedroom.

Contrary to what would be advisable, we traditionally ventilate bedrooms when we wake up — not during the night — precisely when the air we breathe in, a volume ranging between 2,400 and 3,800 litres over eight hours of rest, gradually deteriorates to reach CO₂ concentrations of between 2,400 and 3,500 ppm in closed bedrooms shared by two people.

Today we know that sleep interruptions are not only caused by poor air quality. Air is just one factor. As is often the case in health, almost everything is multifactorial. Other environmental factors — in addition to each individual's physiological characteristics — also come into play, and we can act on them: noise, the presence of electric or electromagnetic fields, light, relative humidity, temperature, and even atmospheric pressure.

Thinking of our bedrooms as regenerative stations for the body would undoubtedly help us sleep better.

In this spirit, we invite the reader to learn about the work carried out at the Qgat Hotel in Sant Cugat del Vallès, where ensuring a good night's rest has been the priority from the very first sketch of the project.

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