If you can’t sleep at night, what should you not do?

Maybe you couldn’t fall asleep, or you woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep. Insomnia is a problem that might affect many of us at some point in our lives, but for some people, this issue goes beyond a short period of sleeplessness and turns into a more serious matter.

Professor Colin Espie, Professor of Sleep Medicine at the University of Oxford, defines insomnia as follows: “If a bad night turns into several nights and extends to three months or more, we call it chronic insomnia.”

Dr. Faith Orchard, Professor of Psychology at the University of Sussex, says: “We usually think of insomnia as difficulty falling asleep, but in reality, insomnia includes both difficulty falling asleep and maintaining sleep. For some people, this condition manifests as waking up in the middle of the night and struggling to get back to sleep, or waking up in the early hours of the morning and not being able to go back to sleep.”

February 14, 2025 | 5:20 am