Our guide to overcoming insomnia and sleeping straight through

If you’re struggling to get the required amount of shut-eye each night, these tips could come in handy We’ve all been there. Those nights when you simply cannot get to sleep. You try everything, from taking the covers off, to putting them back on again. Checking your phone in the hope a quick scan of the news pages might send you off when in reality all it serves to do is make you even more awake and alert. Even going as far as trying out old wives’ tales such as counting sheep (be honest, has that ever worked for anybody?), but nothing changes. You lie there, minute after minute, hour after hour, with your eyes wide open, until you inevitably drop off five minutes before your alarm is due to spark into action. From that point on, the day is simply one long struggle. Insomnia is no laughing matter. At least one in three people suffer with at least a mild form of the sleep disorder, of which there are two different types. Primary insomnia is when a person is experiencing sleep problems which are not directly associated with any other health condition, while secondary insomnia means a person’s sleep struggle is linked to something else, most commonly a health condition, medication they are taking or a substance they are using. The disorder varies in the length of time it lasts and the regularity with which it occurs. Short-term (acute) insomnia can affect people a few times per week, while long-term (chronic) insomnia is when a person suffers three times a week for three months or longer. A real nightmare (although you need to actually fall asleep to experience one of those). In terms of its causes, they differ depending on whether you are suffering with the acute or […]

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