SLEEP

Getting a good night's sleep is crucial for mental and physical wellbeing. Good quality sleep is about the amount of ‘deep sleep’ a person gets, not how long you sleep.

Most ‘deep sleep’ occurs during the first five hours after falling asleep, and that can be disrupted for a number of reasons, such as illness, pain, anxiety or depression.

For Reuters’ Mental Health Week 2023, Reuters got in sleep expert Charlie Morley to run a 6-part course that you can watch back here: Stressed Out Sleep: Transforming Stress & Trauma-Affected Sleep.

Based on his book, Wake Up to Sleep, Charlie presents a holistic approach to better sleep based on 15 years of teaching experience.

In the course you learn how to transform the harmful effects that stress and trauma can have on the third of our life that we spend asleep by regulating our nervous system through the breath and the body.

Using scientifically verified mindfulness-based techniques alongside breath & body-work practices, deep relaxation and lucid dreaming the Mindfulness of Dream & Sleep protocol helps to reduce stress before bed, integrate trauma and optimize sleep quality.

Janet Roberts, Reuters data editor, New York: “Work stress can make sleep difficult, and there is nothing like sleep deprivation to ratchet up my stress. So I try to be diligent about getting enough rest. I am fortunate to find it fairly easy to fall asleep at the end of a full day. All it takes is 15 or 20 minutes with a book, and I’m out. It’s recommended to avoid screen time before bed, and reading a book helps switch off that smartphone-addicted mind.”