Waking up at 5 de la mañana may sound like discipline, but Alfredo Rodríguez-Muñoz says it is a habit with little biological sense and, when pushed into years of short nights, a costly one for health. The psychologist and catedrático at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid argues that voluntary sleep loss is not a shortcut to a better life.
The warning lands at a moment when the five-a.m. routine is still sold as a productivity trick. Several years ago, Robin Sharma published El club de las 5 de la mañana, a book that urged people to start early to organize their day and live more orderly. But the Sociedad Española de Neurología later criticized the idea, and Rodríguez-Muñoz now says the appeal has more to do with a culture of squeezing extra hours from the day than with any real biological advantage.
His case is blunt. Chronic insufficient sleep, he said, is linked to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, obesity, depression and cognitive decline. He described sleep as one of the three great pillars of health, alongside eating well and exercise, and said that when one fails over time the others do not make up the difference. Poor sleep, he added, also disturbs how people eat and leaves them with less energy to exercise, which makes the damage spread beyond the bedroom.
That does not mean every rough night is a crisis. Rodríguez-Muñoz drew a line between a few bad nights and a habit that lasts for years, saying the body pays when sleep deprivation becomes routine. He compared the logic of sacrificing rest for more activity to selling the car to buy gasoline, a trade that looks efficient only at first glance. His point is that sleep is not dead time to be reclaimed later; it is part of what makes the rest of life work.
That is also why the weekend catch-up fantasy falls short. Rodríguez-Muñoz said many functions cannot be fully recovered by sleeping longer on Saturday and Sunday if the workweek has already been spent short of rest. He also tied some sleep problems to hyperactivation — being available, connected and attentive all day, until the body no longer gets a proper chance to switch off. The fix, he said, starts with disconnecting gradually at the end of the day instead of treating exhaustion as a badge of honor.
For readers tempted by the five-a.m. trend, the answer is not a later alarm but a better question: how much sleep has been sacrificed to make the routine look productive? Rodríguez-Muñoz’s warning is that if the trade is repeated long enough, the cost shows up not in lost mornings, but in the health people were trying to improve.
