Nights that will not settleStep 1 of 8

Before you read on

Not all bad sleep is a habit. One thing here is urgent. If you have fallen asleep, or nearly fallen asleep, at the wheel, that goes to a doctor this week, and do not drive drowsy in the meantime. Then the rest. If you snore or somebody has seen you stop breathing in the night, if you are sleepy all day despite enough time in bed, if your legs will not settle in the evening, or if your sleep changed when a medication changed, that goes to a doctor rather than to a course, because sleep with a medical cause does not respond to better habits. If you work nights or shifts, the fixed morning in lesson four is not written for you. And nothing here advises starting, changing or stopping any medicine, because some sleeping medicines are dangerous to stop suddenly.

Lesson 1 of 6 · What is actually wrong with your nights

One complaint, four different problems

People say I do not sleep, and they mean four completely different things.

Short sleep is not getting enough hours in the first place, usually because the window between the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning is simply too narrow.

Broken sleep is getting into bed fine and then being awake at two, or at three, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for the rest of it.

Late sleep is lying there wide awake until three or four and then sleeping perfectly well once it finally comes.

Unrefreshing sleep is the strange one. Eight hours, on paper, and you wake as though you have not slept at all.