At Mayfield Surgery, we know how important sleep is for your health.

Getting enough sleep is essential for staying healthy. It helps your immune system, mental health, metabolism, and brain work well. Aiming for 7–9 hours of good sleep each night can lower the risk of serious health problems like obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Not getting enough sleep can weaken your immune system, make it harder to think clearly, cause mood problems like anxiety and depression, and increase the risk of heart and brain issues.

Things like your physical or mental health, life events, and bad sleep habits can affect how well you sleep. Stress and emotional challenges can also make it harder to get a good night’s rest.

Top Tips for Sleep:

Establish a Sleep Routine: Regular sleep and wake times, along with relaxation techniques before bed, are essential for good sleep hygiene.
Relax Before Bed: Avoid electronic devices and engage in calming activities like reading, listening to music, or practicing meditation.
Mindfulness: Address anxiety and stress through techniques like journaling, talking to a trusted person, or using cognitive-behavioural strategies.
Create a Comfortable Sleep Environment: Ensure a quiet, dark, and cool room. Experiment with earplugs, blackout curtains, or white noise if needed.
Avoid Forcing Sleep: If unable to sleep, engage in a relaxing activity and return to bed only when feeling sleepy.
Diet and Exercise: A healthy diet and regular exercise contribute to better sleep. Avoid stimulants like caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol close to bedtime, and exercise earlier in the day.

Resources to help your sleep:

NHS approved apps to help sleep:

Medications for poor sleep

If the above methods do not help your sleep and you feel that medication is needed, we would recommend speaking to your local pharmacist in the first instance. They may be able to recommend some herbal supplements which may help, or an antihistamine medication that also has a sedating effect, such as promethazine.

Sleeping tablets like zopiclone and temazepam are no longer routinely prescribed. These medications are highly addictive, and individuals using them often develop a tolerance, meaning the drugs lose their effectiveness over time, so are more likely to cause harm than to help your sleep. Instead, the focus is on non-medication strategies to improve sleep quality.