ON THE COVER Sleep Therapy: Improve Your Sleep Now!

Feeling weary? These courses could help you to sleep soundly and wake refreshed

Sleeping well has immense health benefits. It keeps your heart and mind healthy, supports your immune system and improves concentration.

Good sleep makes it easier to maintain a healthy lifestyle, control your weight and enjoy good hormonal health. You feel more upbeat, energetic – even grateful!

Good quality sleep is important for processing memories, too. Dr Robert Stickgold from the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School explains, “If you’ve ever done something like practising a piano piece, and you feel that you just can’t learn it, it’s not uncommon that people will walk away in frustration. Then the first time they try it the next day, they have it per fect.

“It turns out, your brain is actually working on those memories. The skills that you work on during the day are being refined and improved while you sleep.”

During sleep your muscles grow, tissues repair, growth hormones release and the body rejuvenates itself.

Sleep also clears adenosine – a by-product from cells that accumulates during waking hours and makes you sleepy. Once it’s gone, you wake feeling alert.

If your sleep is frequently cut short, interrupting these processes, you might feel sluggish and benefit from some of the exciting online sleep therapies available for insomnia.

Based on the principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, called CBT-i, they use interactive guides, video, reading material and audio to provide a personalised programme of treatment to help you sleep better.

You’ve no doubt heard that blue light from screens disturbs your sleep, but if you get a screen adjuster from a technology store, or an app to reduce the blue light, it solves the problem. f.lux is a free app designed for this purpose. Go to WWW.JUSTGETFLUX.COM