Dr Sutapa Mukherjee

But we all have difficulty sleeping and I have the same issues from time to time.

And I think one of the most important things is most of us can function quite well, pretty well, even if we haven't had a really good night's sleep.

If, say, you've only had a few hours sleep compared to your normal seven hours.

So you can still go to work, you can still do most of the things and then the next night you just go to bed at your usual time and you'll probably go off to sleep faster.

So trying to reduce that anxiety of, you know, it's 3 a.m.,

you've got to be up at six to be at work and you're having some trouble going back to sleep.

So reducing that anxiety about the fact that you're not asleep is actually a part of helping you to actually get off to sleep because if you start to get all worked up that, oh, I really need to be asleep, that just makes it much harder to go back to sleep.

But realising that you've had a few hours in,

you'll still be able to get through your day with only a few hours of sleep and then the next night you'll get a good night, is kind of reassuring and helps to take away that anxiety and hyper-arousal which then makes it really hard.

to go back to sleep.

So I think that's a really important thing.

And as you say, the mindfulness, so, you know, the counting sheep thing, try to do something that is pretty boring.

You don't want to be doing anything particularly active because then that'll just make you stay awake more.

Going into the other room, sitting, listening to something, just trying to meditate, all of those things will help to calm you down.

And then when you feel sleepy, go back to the bedroom.

I think a lot of people are unaware.

I mean, sometimes they come to us in the medical profession because of the snoring, which is disrupting their bed partner.

But a lot of times people just assume that snoring and not sleeping well is just a part of getting older, but it definitely isn't.

And a lot of people have sleep apnea who are not aware of it.

We know that when we've done...