Page 85 - BBC - The Scientific Guide to a Healthier You
P. 85
SLEEP
BEAT INSOMNIA
Top tips to get a good night’s sleep
Establish a routine Adopting good Eat and drink right Caffeine is a
sleeping habits can help you overcome stimulant that will disrupt your sleep,
insomnia and sleeping difficulties. Go to so avoid drinking tea and coffee for at
bed and wake up at around the same time least four hours before going to bed.
every day, and don’t try to force yourself Eating spicy food in the evening can
to drop off if you aren’t feeling sleepy. disturb sleep too, although some people
find that a small snack before bedtime
Relax before bed Take a hot bath an helps them drift off.
hour or two before going to bed – this will
relax you and promote both sleep onset Keep sleep separate Your sleeping
and prolong the duration of deep sleep, environment is also important – wear
because of the effects on body earplugs and use heavy curtains. And
temperature. Also, avoid exposure to your bed is for sleeping, so don’t use it
bright light in the evening, as this can for other activities such as watching
unsettle circadian rhythms. TV, working or surfing the web.
has led some researchers to argue that insomnia
can actually cause mental illness.
In one study, Prof Matt Walker of the University
of California, Berkeley, scanned the brains of
mentally healthy participants while they
viewed a series of emotion-laden and neutral
So while the causes of insomnia remain photos. Compared to those who were not sleep
unclear, the condition can be treated and deprived, people who had stayed awake for 36
although CBT is effective, access to the treatment hours beforehand showed greater brain activity
could be improved if it was made available in the amygdala, a small brain structure that
on home computers. This approach to CBT processes emotion. The sleep-deprived group
treatments has been shown to effectively treat also exhibited reduced connectivity between
depression, but getting patients to start and neurones in the amygdala and the medial
then stick to the treatments can be difficult. prefrontal cortex (MPFC), which curtails the
The ENACT project looked at improving how emotional response from the amygdala to
patients interact with such treatments by seeing produce an appropriate reasoned reaction.
how people use social media websites. “The Prof Walker and his colleagues concluded that
way people engage with Facebook mirrors the sleep may ‘reset’ the MPFC-amygdala circuit
way we want them to engage with computerised to prepare for the following day’s emotional
CBT treatment,” says Dr Shaun Lawson, a challenges. They suggest the findings could
computer scientist and principle investigator mean that there’s a causal link – sleep disruption
on the ENACT project. could cause mood disorder.
Dr Lawson adds that people are more willing But this conclusion is highly speculative, and
to disclose personal information on social- many aren’t convinced. “There’s no evidence
networking sites than in real life, and that online whatsoever that insomnia causes mental illness,”
games use rewards and incentives to ensure that
says Prof Jim Horne, director of the Sleep
SHUTTERSTOCK, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY treatments into websites like Facebook might “It may be true that insomnia and some mental by MOHEB
Research Centre at Loughborough University.
players return to play regularly: “Embedding
reduce the barrier of maintaining adherence
illnesses have common factors. Sleep is affected
in people who are depressed. So sleeping tablets
to computerised CBT.”
may help, but they won’t get to the underlying
COSTANDI
cause and cure the problem.”
DEEPER PROBLEMS
(@mocost)
Insomnia often coincides with depression, but
Insomnia, it seems, remains something
Moheb is a neuroscientist
of a mystery.
the link is poorly understood and recent work
and science writer.
BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 83
