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Sleep Disorders

You don't really question sleep until you're not getting enough. And it's only when symptoms spiral out of control that you think about doing anything. Suddenly you're falling asleep during conversations, you're unable to concentrate on anything longer than a TV ad break, you can't be bothered to socialise any more and it's the fourth time this week you've put the tea bag in cold water. Even then, it often takes a comment from someone - 'Gosh you've been looking tired lately', 'You're not as lively as you used to be' or 'If you don't do something about your snoring, I'm going to leave you' - before you actually decide to take action.

I've seen many parents reduced to shadows of their former selves after extended periods of sleep deprivation. Those in top decision-making jobs become unable to decide what to have for breakfast, reduced to tears if they find the cornflakes packet empty. Fiercely bright men and women armed with first class degrees unable to recall their own middle names. For the most part however, parents get through this bleak period and find their brains, memory and dignity (well, brains and memory anyway) intact.

By far the biggest cause of insomnia, however, is stress. Study after study shows that we've got too much on our plate nowadays. We're working longer hours and there's more demanded of us at work. The constant threat of redundancy that most of us are under means that we're not even being rewarded for all our efforts. Then there's money - you can't even begin to think about how you're going to pay your £4000 credit card bill. It's not surprising panicky thoughts are keeping you up at night.

Chances are you're always on the go. It's very difficult to switch off from the world because there are no quiet times any more. You can pretty much do anything you want at any time of the day or night - from buying frozen peas to organising a bank loan. Then there's the overwhelming amount of choice which makes every decision you make increasingly difficult - from choosing a breakfast cereal to deciding which of the 268 shades of white to paint your downstairs toilet. At this rate, it's a wonder any of us get any sleep at all.

Many people I spoke to when writing this book had suffered insomnia for years, but had never done anything about it. They simply didn't know where to start and were unconvinced that anything could work. The fact is, there are some pretty straightforward strategies to help you get the sleep you deserve. Just understanding what happens to your body while you sleep will help you work out the mechanisms behind your sleep problems - whether it's insomnia, nightmares, restless legs syndrome or sleep apnoea. And finding out about your body clock means you won't waste time trying out things that won't ever work. If you're a night owl, for instance, there's no point going to bed at 10 p.m. - you'll be staring at the ceiling for 5 hours, churning over your thoughts. By the time you're ready to drop off, you'll have convinced yourself that you're going to get the sack, die horribly on your cycle ride to work, be abandoned by your partner or be told that the mole you've been thinking about is definitely cancerous.

The key to solving your sleep problem is finding the cause - be it stress, bad diet, a noisy bedroom environment - and being persistent. That means not giving up if the first thing you try doesn't work. If you need to relax, and yoga doesn't do it for you, try another relaxation technique. Maybe music or mental tricks will suit you better. Look at your diet and lifestyle too - particularly if you're regularly having late night takeaways. The wrong foods, for instance, can lead to snoring, nightmares and disrupted and disturbed sleep and can make restless legs syndrome worse. And exercise helps by tackling stress and making you feel good about yourself as well as regulating your body clock and helping trigger all those sleep hormones at the right time. I've come up with a huge selection of tried-and-tested solutions so I guarantee you won't run out of things to do - from changing your bedtime routine and visualisation tricks to decluttering your bedroom and performing wake-me-up morning stretches.

Try everything that takes your fancy, write down how well it worked, keep referring back to your notes and soon you should have a list of all those changes you've made that do the trick. It may take one week or it may take a few months. But don't give up. Before you know it, you'll be sleeping soundly every night, waking up in a great mood and managing to stay full awake during every conversation you have in the day.

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