Do you dream of sleep?

Getting a good night’s sleep can be difficult at the best of times in a world full of distractions. But when you add a global health pandemic into the mix, nodding off can become even more taxing.

The National Sleep Survey reveals COVID-19 is having a severe impact on shuteye. The headline figures were that 75 per cent of the 2,700 people polled said the unease around the current situation was affecting their sleep.

The online poll, which was commissioned by Sleepstation, The Sleep Council and The Sleep Charity, also found that 43 per cent of people are now finding it harder to fall asleep. It also found women are twice as likely to report feelings of stress compared to men.

Independent sleep expert Dr Neil Stanley, who is the resident expert at Sleepstation, said it was no wonder three quarters of people felt ‘corona-anxiety’ was affecting their sleep.

He added: “In order to get to sleep the one key thing you have got to have is a quiet mind. If you are worried, stressed, anxious and ruminating about things then you are not going to be able to fall asleep.”

He said it was difficult to escape news of the virus, which was also a threat on many levels. Dr Stanley said: “One is the illness on its own, the other is the threat to our friends and family. You also have the problem with finance and jobs.

“It’s not just an illness, it’s an economic issue as well. There are profound changes and, of course, anxiety is going to be part of our response.”

The expert said anxiety at low levels is a good thing as it can act as an early warning system. But if we get too anxious about things we can’t control “then that will prey on our mind and when we go to bed we will be thinking negative things about the pandemic rather than not thinking about anything at all, which is what we should be doing.” So that begs the question, what can we do to get a good night’s rest. Dr Stanley has published a daily sleep tip on his Twitter (@ drneilstanley) feed for the last six years. He says every single piece of advice he gives falls into three categories. The first prerequisite for dropping off was a bedroom “conducive to sleep”, one that was dark, cool and comfortable.

The second is a relaxed body, free from tension. While the third is a quiet mind.

The freelance sleep guru said: “You need to prioritize sleep. See it as a pleasure and as an achievement. Put as much preparation into going to sleep as you do to warm up for exercise.”

But he added: “There is no magic way to sleep, you need to find your way to sleep.”

He said this could range from reading before bed, to 45 minutes of “niceness” before bedtime, listening to meditation tapes and music, not going to bed on an argument, and not watching the late news bulletins.

But giving advice is one thing, taking it is quite another dimension.

Dr Stanley said: “It’s all common sense that we have been giving for at least 150 years. People know how to get a good night’s sleep but they are just not willing to do it.”

But he said there are a proportion of people who have chronic difficulty sleeping and need more advanced help. In normal times around a third of people have poor sleep and between five and ten per cent of the general population have what you would consider insomnia. “Some people may have unfortunately been an insomniac and they are even worse now,” added Dr Stanley.

Another “troubling” finding of the survey was that more than half of the respondents were unsure where to go for help. Dr Stanley said even before lockdown the government had said to pharmacists that they should be the first line of attack. The sleep expert feels people are being encouraged to go to pharmacists with their problems before going to their doctors.

He added: “The problem with pharmacists is they are not trained in sleep. But then neither are most doctors. Very few doctors have more than an hour and half ’s training in sleep medicine. So people are confused as to who deals with sleep. Is it a psychiatrist, a pulmonologist, or a neurologist? It is not on people’s radar.”

He said there wasn’t much useful advice or signposting as to where people should go. People often searched on Google or looked through the Yellow Pages.

But Dr Stanley, who has 38 years’ worth of experience in the field, warned: “To be honest, there are a lot of cowboy people pretending to be sleep experts with absolutely no training in psychology, or therapy, or sleep or cognitive behavioural therapy. So even if people find somebody, they might not be getting what they think they are paying for.”

But he said there were a few options, like the free online portal sleepful.me and Sleepstation.

Sleepstation is a drug-free and clinically validated sleep improvement programme, which people can buy or apply for free access through the NHS or BUPA. But Dr Stanley conceded: “It is actually quite difficult to find help, there is no doubt about that.”