Sleep Hygiene

 

When we were writing this Karen said to Michael "what do you mean by sleep hygiene? No-one will understand that!"

 

Sleep hygiene is effectively everything to do with getting the amount of sleep that each and every one of us requires every twenty-four hour cycle in order to function normally during our usual waking day.

 

It means going to bed at a reasonable time before midnight.  For most it requires eight hours of undisturbed sleep.  It usually involves patterns of behaviour that are the forerunner to going to bed and having a restful night's sleep. Many people including Karen and Michael know what it is like to work night duties and the disruption to sleep this causes. It can be a shattering experience and time management and the looking after personal need becomes even more important. In our experience all night shift workers tend to live a life under various degrees of sleep deprivation.

 

There are many reasons why people do not get a good night's sleep and whole textbooks are written on the subject beyond what we can write about in a brief article but the point is this – if you do not get enough sleep, if you have any problems getting off to sleep, waking up repeatedly during the night or waking earlier than you need, then you do have disordered sleep hygiene and it is necessary to try and work out why that might be and then do something about it.

 

We can help guide you back into normal sleep behaviour