Sleep learning curve (From The Northern Echo)

Sleep learning curve

10:52am Tuesday 2nd November 2010 in Echo Woman

Rockliffe Hall is offering an alternative for sufferers of chronic insomnia with the launch of The Sleep Retreat, a one-day workshop with sleep specialist Guy Meadows followed by a relaxing Dreamtime spa experience. Ruth Addicott goes along to try it out.

ANYONE who’s laid awake all night struggling to get to sleep has had a glimpse of what it’s like to live with insomnia. Before you know it, two hours have passed, then three and panic has set in as you wonder how you’re going to survive tomorrow. Just as you finally drop off into a deep, deep sleep, the bin men arrive, the alarm goes off and it’s time to get up.

After several nights of experiencing exactly this – tossing and turning and trying every remedy from counting backwards to Bachs night drops, help unexpectedly arrives.

The editor wanders over and asks if someone will cover The Sleep Retreat at Rockliffe Hall.

Led by sleep specialist Dr Guy Meadows, founder of the London Insomnia Clinic, it involves a one-day workshop and 90-minute Dreamtime spa treatment, complete with sound wave therapy beds.

If this doesn’t work, what will, I wonder, as I take my seat among my fellow insomniacs. There are 12 of us in the group, including a student, several professionals and a couple in their 60s. Some are more bleary-eyed than others and confess they haven’t had a good night’s sleep in years.

They are not alone. Up to 25 per cent of people in the UK suffer from insomnia and there are 10 million prescriptions for sleeping pills doled out in England every year. In fact, it’s such big business, it’s spawned a multi-million pound industry offering everything from shiatsu massage pillows and memory foam toppers to Valerian tea.

Insomnia can strike at any time. It can affect anyone from teenagers, new mums and professional athletes to pensioners, leaving sufferers feeling exhausted, irritable, frustrated and lonely.

Guy has been studying sleep patterns for nine years and believes his Mindful Sleep Therapy approach is the most effective yet. “Sleep is a natural process, you can’t force it,” he says. “As humans we always try to control it and say, ‘right, I’m going to sleep now’. Today, we’re going to learn to let go of the struggle.”

Rather than fight it, he says, we should familiarise ourselves with it and accept it.

We move on to things people do to try to get to sleep, from deep breathing techniques to thinking of the colour purple. Some group members get up several times a night to go to the toilet, some have resorted to sleeping in separate beds. Others surf the internet, have a shower and even make a bowl of pasta at 4am.

All this, according to Guy, has to stop. You have to stay in bed and trust in your body’s natural ability to sleep. “If you ask a good sleeper what they do to get to sleep, they say nothing, whereas insomniacs do everything – I want you to stop looking for a solution.”

He continues: “What that does mean is I am going to ask you to experience some discomfort. Does anyone here not like raisins?”

Intrigued, if slightly baffled, we shake our heads, wondering how a raisin is going to help us sleep. Guy produces a box and hands us each a raisin. He then tells us to imagine we are aliens and to hold the raisin in the palm of our hands and just sit and look at it for a few minutes. We have to examine how it looks and feels and if a thought comes into our heads, we have to “acknowledge it”, then go back to observing the raisin.

Eventually we’re told we can put it in our mouths. “Just be aware of it sitting there,” he says.

It is too much for one group member, who bursts into tears – a common response, according to Guy.

Finally, after a few minutes, we’re told we can chew the raisin “very, very slowly” and swallow it.

The idea behind the exercise is to raise our awareness levels – the key to tackling insomnia.

Next time we’re lying in bed awake, struggling to sleep, he says we should stop thinking about time ticking by and focus instead on the present. “Ask yourself: ‘what can I feel right now?’ It may be the pillow touching your face. It may be your feet against the duvet,” he says.

“Then ask yourself: ‘What can I hear?’ Perhaps it’s the sound of the heating or your partner breathing.

Do it once and it will have no effect, do it a thousand times and you’ll begin to change the relationship you have with sleep.”

As soon as your mind begins to wander, Guy suggests repeating the exercise again.

He points out that people suffering from chronic insomnia are often misdiagnosed with depression. Guy says depression is a symptom rather than a cause and once someone’s sleeping patterns return to normal, they often find their other problems disappear.

Causes can vary from stress, trauma and injury to jetlag, babies and hormones. Even a snoring spouse can set it off in some cases.

“I’ve had people who went on a cruise and couldn’t sleep because they had an uncomfortable pillow – once the seed of doubt is sown in one’s mind, the less you sleep, it’s a vicious circle,” he says. “There doesn’t have to be an event in one’s life that triggers it – sometimes insomnia can occur suddenly. People come to me because they just want to lead their life again.”

While Guy does advise keeping regular sleeping hours, he says it’s wrong to assume we need a full eight hours, as many of us can function perfectly well on less. He also says it’s fine to have caffeine and even alcohol (within limits). The key is not to think about trying to sleep, but to focus on the moment.

I don’t know if it was the raisin, my pillow or the sound wave therapy bed, but I’ve managed to drop off ever since.

■ Rockliffe Hall will be holding the next Sleep Retreat on February 20 to 21, 2011. Call 01325-729999 or visit rockliffehall.co.uk. The break comprises one night’s dinner, bed and breakfast, a one-day workshop with sleep specialist Dr Guy Meadows, as well as use of the spa facilities, including the 90-minute Ila Dreamtime treatment, involving deeply relaxing and meditative, holistic massage techniques. The break costs £375 per person based on two sharing, although it is possible to book the workshop on its own.