Sleep Disorders: Simple Rules for Better Sleep
Around 10% of the German population suffer from chronic sleep disorders. Sleep disorders increase with age.
Around 10% of the German population suffers from chronic sleep disorders. Sleep disorders increase with age. Sleeping pills are often taken for years to treat the condition. Sleep researchers at the University of Pittsburgh were able to prove in a study that relatively simple rules improve sleep disorders in 70% of cases:
- Reduce the time in bed!
- Always get up at the same time in the morning, regardless of how long you sleep!
- Never go to bed if you are not tired!
- Only use the bed for sleeping and not for watching TV or reading!
This advice has actually been known for years, but is rarely followed. However, the researchers were able to prove that patients who followed these rules achieved a significant reduction in their sleep disorder in 2/3 of the cases.
More tips to improve sleep hygiene:
- The bedroom should not be overheated, too bright or too noisy.
- Do not drink too much alcohol or eat too much before going to bed. Drinks containing caffeine should be avoided.
- Ruminations and anxious thoughts should be put aside.
- Just like poor sleeping habits, patients often get used to constantly brooding in bed, reported Berlin sleep medicine specialist Jürgen Staedt and his Freiburg colleague Dieter Rieman in the German Medical Journal.
As soon as you lie down, the carousel of thoughts starts. At first, patients brood over a current problem that they cannot switch off. If sleep disorders persist, it is no longer about acute worries or fears, but rather about banal everyday things. However, this constant thinking and brooding can be trained out of it.