As a parent or caregiver, making sure your teen gets quality sleep is crucial. In today’s fast-paced world, many young people struggle to develop healthy sleep habits. That’s why we’re excited to share valuable insights from a UWA research team (including our very own Dr. Melissa Ree) on evidence-based strategies to promote better sleep in young people.
Exploring sleep wearables: Enhancing Benefits and Navigating Risks
In the fast-evolving landscape of sleep health, wearable devices have emerged as tools offering insights into our nightly rest. From sleek smartwatches, rings on our fingers, to discreet sensors nestled near our beds, these devices provide a glimpse into metrics like sleep-wake patterns, nocturnal movements, and even biostatistics such as heart rate and blood oxygen levels. While there are some …
Answers to 5 of your most common questions about sleep
Sleep health is important. We understand that everyone needs at least reasonable sleep to function happily and healthily. Yet sleep itself can be somewhat mysterious and misunderstood. The Sleep Matters team have advanced training in the management of sleep difficulties and we wanted to clarify some sleep facts and bust some common myths. So here are the answers to 5 …
Navigating jet lag
If you’re jet-setting to another time zone this summer, you will likely experience some disruption to your sleep. This can often be due to early or late flight schedules and anxiety or excitement about travelling, but another key factor is the dreaded jet lag. What is jet lag? Jet lag occurs when we travel to a destination in a different …
Evening exercise and sleep: should we be changing our advice?
Many of us are interested in improving our health and wellbeing. Sleep is a great way to do this was we know that sleep is the third pillar of health alongside physical activity and nutrition. A very common piece of advice for improving sleep is to avoid moderate-vigorous exercise before bedtime. Many official ‘Sleep Hygiene’ Guidelines suggest no exercise after …
Winding Down for Sleep
Many people who come to Sleep Matters for help with their sleep use expressions such as “I can’t switch off” to describe having a busy mind that interferes with sleep. Many people mistakenly believe that switching off or shutting the mind down is necessary for sleep. It’s important to remember, however, that the human brain doesn’t have an off switch, …
Sleep Terrors, what are they and what can be done about them?
Eleanor Jones (Clinical Psychologist Registrar) What are sleep terrors? Sleep terrors (also known as night terrors) are often confused with nightmares, but they are actually a different phenomenon. Sleep Terrors are a type of parasomnia, an unusual behaviour that accompanies sleep. Sleep terrors are a partial arousal parasomnia, meaning that the person experiencing the sleep terror shows signs of being …
When kids find it hard to sleep alone
Eleanor Jones (Clinical Psychologist Registrar) For some children, sleeping alone at night can be a scary prospect. This can often lead to parents finding themselves co-sleeping with their children or having children frequently jumping into the parent’s bed in the middle of the night. This may be the case for toddlers through to teenagers. Although we all need extra closeness …
Tips for sleeping well when you’re away from home
Jakub Dammer, Clinical Psychologist (registrar) Australians love to travel during the holidays and the thought of seeing new places and being away from home can be exciting. Many of us are able to travel now that COVID restrictions are lifting. However, for some, travel can prompt concerns about trying to get to sleep in an unfamiliar environment. If you’ve ever …
COVID-19 Pandemic Dreams: the what, the why, and the how-to manage bad dreams
Researchers around the globe are looking into the phenomenon of pandemic dreams and are finding that people are indeed experiencing COVID-19-related dream changes. According to an ongoing French study, the coronavirus pandemic has caused a 35 percent increase in dream recall among participants, and a 15 percent increase in negative dreams. All over social media, people are reporting bizarre and …
Treating Insomnia, how can mindfuless help?
Research is uncovering mindfulness to be a powerful aid in the quest to treat Insomnia. In recent years, there has been a huge amount of scientific interest in the benefits of mindfulness to many aspects of health and wellbeing, including Insomnia. After describing what Mindfulness is, we present some interesting summaries of clinical research trials (including one by Dr Melissa Ree from …
Sleep Tips: Get your sleep routines in order
It’s World Sleep Day this Friday March 15th, and to support this we’d like to encourage people to take a step towards building a healthy sleep routine by getting their sleep conditions in order. Give any changes you make a couple of weeks to work. Below are some of the behaviours we help our clients at Sleep Matters to implement. …