WHAT is keeping you awake at night? Work? Concerns about the children, or debt? Whatever it is, many of us are struggling to get the sleep we need and, given the known effects of insomnia, and its links to depression and obesity, it would be fair to call what is happening a health crisis.
Finding a solution will always depend on individual circumstances, but there will be some comfort in a new helpline from the charity Sleep Scotland. The idea is that it will provide advice to the parents of children struggling to sleep, with the project expected to be rolled out nationwide later in the year.
Hopefully, the helpline will tackle one of the biggest factors in insomnia among children and young people: the over-use of social media and electronic devices. Shouldn’t all parents be imposing a curfew on their use?
As for adults, we already know some of the issues that affect their sleep – the blurring of the lines between work and home life for instance. We also know insomnia is caused by some of the same factors that have caused our obesity problem: a chronic lack of exercise and unhealthy diets.
The hope is that the new helpline will make an important contribution to solving insomnia. But, for adults and children, it can only ever be part of a much bigger challenge, which is to tackle the social, cultural and economic trends that contribute to it.
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