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PROFESSOR GUY LESCHZINER: How to banish your insomnia without pills - Daily Mail

PROFESSOR GUY LESCHZINER: How to banish your insomnia without pills - Daily Mail

PROFESSOR GUY LESCHZINER: How to banish your insomnia without pills - Daily Mail
Jan 15, 2022 3 mins, 38 secs

In yesterday's Daily Mail, in the first part of an exclusive series about how to beat insomnia, renowned consultant neurologist and sleep expert Professor Guy Leschziner told how the pandemic has been driving another global health crisis: an epidemic of sleep problems.

There's no doubt that the pandemic has exacerbated this problem, with evidence that those who've caught Covid, and many who haven't, have suffered sleep issues following the strain the pandemic has put on our minds and bodies.

There's no doubt that the pandemic has exacerbated chronic trouble sleeping, with evidence that those who've caught Covid, and many who haven't, have suffered sleep issues following the strain the pandemic has put on our minds and bodies (stock photo).

Insomnia can take many forms, and be miserable and stressful to battle with, but only a minority with the problem have the 'risky' sort ('short sleep duration' insomnia) that leads to serious health problems!

You won't know if you suffer this type of insomnia unless monitored in a sleep lab but, based on scientific evidence, it's clear that most people with insomnia don't sleep as badly as they think.

It's not uncommon for individuals, after a night observed in the sleep lab, to think they've had only a few minutes' sleep across the whole night.

So it could be that, in patients with paradoxical insomnia, some area of the brain responsible for awareness is not 'switching off' to the same extent as the rest of the brain, so they feel they were awake all night.

But one relatively safe, temporary option to deal with insomnia is melatonin, a man-made version of the 'sleepy' hormone that occurs naturally in the brain to help control sleep patterns.

So it's only people whose sleep is truly curtailed who'll experience the physical consequences of poor sleep, with their nervous system on high alert, flooding their systems with hormones and chemical messengers.

While almost all insomniacs will have an over-active mind at night and experience the emotional consequences of poor sleep – which can include low mood, anxiety and irritability – most won't experience any of these markers of physiological stress.

Even the daytime cognitive performance of people with 'normal' insomnia is more like that of people who say they have no trouble sleeping than those with short-sleep duration insomnia.

But one relatively safe, temporary option is melatonin, a man-made version of the 'sleepy' hormone that occurs naturally in the brain to help control sleep patterns.

The side effects may include nausea, headache and night sweats – but it doesn't lead to the dependence and other serious issues seen with some other sleeping pills.

But the primary aim should always be re-establishing healthy sleep patterns, not staying on drugs long-term.

This uses behavioural techniques to reprogramme the brains of people with insomnia.

If you have no problems with sleep, you associate your bedroom with that comforting sensation of putting your head on the pillow and drifting off.

This is done using a number of strategies – stimulus control, sleep restriction, relaxation training and the cognitive therapy after which it is named.

We begin by doing things during the day that facilitate sleep later, including setting regular wake and sleep times, restricting light exposure in the evening and not eating late at night or consuming caffeine.

And you mustn't nap during the day as this could diminish your body's desire for sleep at night.

At night, if you haven't drifted off within 15 minutes, you must get out of bed and go to a different room, only returning when you feel sleepy.

However, many people with insomnia spend more time in bed to compensate for their poor sleep, to give themselves more 'chance' to fall asleep.

By limiting time in bed to about five hours a night (the amount depends on the individual) for a couple of weeks during CBTi, the theory is that we end up strengthening the brain's drive to sleep while in the bed.

Patients are asked to spend no longer than five hours in bed the night before going to a sleep laboratory for a 24-hour treatment

They are permitted to try to fall asleep at night, every 30 minutes, with electrodes attached to their scalp

This technique is not yet used routinely in clinical practice and is not appropriate for everyone but it shows that retraining the brain to associate bed with sleep is fundamental to dealing with insomnia

Summarized by 365NEWSX ROBOTS

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