Sleeping helps restore your body’s energy. If you manage to get enough sleep it makes it easier the next day to deal with anything, including dealing with any emotional or psychological problems.

If you’re struggling to sleep here’s a few tips to help you:

• Have a regular bedtime.
• Check the bedroom temperature and how comfortable your bed is.
• Before bed: Take a bath, read, draw, listen to music, play an instrument. Do something that will help you shut off so when you go to bed you’re not thinking of your problems.
• Exercise – if you do some exercise in the early evening around 5 – 6pm this will help you relax before bed. Don’t over do it though, especially when you are just beginning. Do not exercise just before you go to bed. See our page on Exercise.
• Eat at a reasonable time in the evening, rather than just before you are going to bed.
• Relax before bed – for at least 4 hours before bedtime try not to take anything that will keep you awake such as caffeine (remember cola and stimulant drinks contain caffeine as well as tea & coffee) . Keep an eye on your caffeine intake during the day, if you are getting through a lot of coffee, tea, cola etc then this may still affect your sleep, even if you don’t drink it at night.
• Remember that computer, Playstation & Xbox games can be very stimulating and leave you wired up before going to bed, so try to leave some wind down time before bed if you use these at night.

Once in Bed

• Don’t worry about sleep – it’s important that you try to take your mind off it because if you keep worrying you’ll find it harder get to sleep.
• Block your thoughts – pick a good word like “sea” or “grass” and lie in bed with your eyes closed. After taking 10 deep breaths keep repeating the word in your head and if you start thinking about something else just come back to the word and keep saying it until you either fall asleep or are thinking nice thoughts.
• Concentrate on nothing but the blackness of your eyelids. Just feel your brain relax as you stop thinking about anything and just look at your eyelids.
• If you find closing your eyes does not work try staring fixedly at the ceiling telling yourself you will not go to sleep whatever happens. Even though you know this is a trick it can work, perhaps for the more stubborn of us!

Take Valerian before bed. This will help you relax and are completely natural. As always, read the label and check for any side effects before taking them, but you already know that.

Alcohol may help you sleep if you are having an occasional drink. But if you are drinking lots regularly it will stop you sleeping, this can be a real problem as people can then drink more and more to put themselves to sleep. They will ultimately need to drink even more and more to get themselves to sleep.

Many illegal drugs stop you sleeping, when you are taking them and when you are withdrawing from them...

It’s worth talking to your GP or Nurse about what’s going on. There are lots of things that can affect sleep, the most common being anxiety/worry.

There are lots of books and tapes etc on how to get a good night’s sleep. It ‘s worth checking these out.

Goodnight.... Zzzzzzzzzz