Sleep well

IS IT NORMAL TO WAKE UP DURING THE NIGHT?

Waking in the night is not only common but also very normal. We often wake a couple of times in the night long enough to remember it and then fall back to sleep relatively quickly. But we also wake up more than we realise, and often don’t remember it. In deeper sleep, our larger muscles of movement are paralysed, so each time you change your sleeping position you are a little bit awake or in very light sleep. Plus, we wake up more the older we get – often from needing the loo! These kinds of awakenings are nothing to fret about, and worrying about them can feed into sleep-related anxieties that create more prolonged awakenings and more ongoing sleeping difficulties, such as insomnia.

‘You can help get more solid sleep by ensuring you have access to plenty of daylight during the day and have lots of physical exercise,’ says Tracy Hannigan, a sleep coach. ‘Checking the clock or tracking how long you are awake in the night isn’t helpful. If you wake very frequently, really remember it, or the periods of being awake are long (more than 30 minutes), this could be a sign of a type of insomnia. Luckily, there are evidence-based treatments, such as cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, which are helpful for these more problematic wakings.’tracythesleepcoach.co.uk