When it comes to an adrenaline rush, there’s usually also a descent that can take some time. This can be biologically disruptive, as Frank Ruelle points out. Ruelle, who will soon retire and has spent 20 years as a morning presenter on La Première and Vivacité Charleroi, currently presents the evening news on Vivacité and has been doing so for 15 years. He notes that despite trying everything, we never seem to get enough sleep. Waking up at 2:30 or 3 in the morning isn’t merely an early wake-up time, but more akin to waking up in the middle of the night. To feel fresh and awake, you would need to go to bed around 8 pm – something most of us don’t do.
As Christophe Grandjean chimes in, we tend to take naps to catch up on missed sleep. Florence Hürner views naptime as a way to cut off from work and ease into life at home. But napping doesn’t entirely compensate for lost sleep, as Frank Ruelle points out. As we age, even naps last longer, and when it’s time to wake up, it takes a while to get over the grogginess. Prolonged sleep deprivation can impact not only our bodies but also our personal and social lives. Sleep deprivation can cause drops in blood pressure and dizziness, as Ruelle experienced during his years as a morning presenter. Ultimately, Ruelle opted for presenting the evening news to get the rest he needed. Even sleeping in on weekends doesn’t reverse the adverse effects of lost sleep, according to medical reports.
But who says adrenaline rush, also says descent… Which sometimes takes a little time. And that is biologically upsetting. Frank Ruelle, soon to be retired, who has been a morning presenter for 20 years, on La Première and on Vivacité Charleroi, and who today has been presenting the evening news on Vivacité for 15 years, explains it very well. “We can turn the problem in all directions: we never sleep enough. Getting up at 2:30 or 3 a.m. is not getting up early, it’s getting up in the middle of the night! You have to go to bed at 8 p.m. to do well, and we don’t do it…“
“No we don’t continues Christophe Grandjean. “So we take naps, and finally I go to bed at 9:30 p.m., 10 p.m. at the latest. Everyone has their own rhythm for Florence Hürner, “me when I leave Reyers, I will very quickly take a good shower, just to make the cut between work and home, and then I too take a nap from 1:30 to 2 hours, never more.
We never make up for the hours we haven’t slept
“At the beginning, when you are young, you can tell yourself 6 hours of sleep is enoughsays Frank Ruelle, “and then, as you get older, you have to take naps, sometimes longer and longer, and when you wake up from too long a nap you’re muddy, it takes one to two hours to get over it and then when we are on our feet again, we must already think about going to sleep… With all the consequences that it has on our body, but also on our family and social life.
But, he says, as seen in a medical article, you never make up for the hours you haven’t slept. It is not because we sleep in on the weekend that we will catch up with the negative impact of shortened nights. The body, in Frank, finally yielded: “in the end, when I stopped my first morning installment in 1998, I was subject to drops in blood pressure, dizziness.” After resuming morning papers for a few more years, Frank took the splits by starting a course of evening newspapers.
In conclusion, the demanding schedule of media professionals takes a toll on their sleep and health, both physically and socially. As the body ages, the need for additional rest becomes more pressing, but it is difficult to make up for lost sleep. Despite the challenges, these professionals adapt by taking naps and adjusting their bedtime, and sometimes even changing their schedule entirely. The sacrifices they make in pursuit of their careers, including waking up in the middle of the night, are a reminder of the dedication and resilience required to succeed in the fast-paced world of media.