Top tips for a better night's sleep

Getting a good night’s sleep is good for all of us, but especially for family carers of people with dementia. We know that good sleeping patterns are essential for our physical and mental wellbeing. As carers, we feel stressed when we believe we don’t have the resources to cope with whatever demands are being placed on us, and lack of sleep really depletes our resources.

But despite how important it is for us to sleep, we’re not very good at it. The 2016 Great British Sleep Survey found that 63.1% of people feel they don’t get enough sleep. Poor sleepers are seven times more likely to feel hopeless and five times more likely to feel alone. Therefore, as family carers, our need for good quality sleep is a vital component for reducing stress and increasing our resilience. 

So, how about you? Do you struggle to get off to sleep? Or often have a restless night, leaving you tired and irritable the next day? If so, you’re definitely not alone. Our sleep tends to be affected by four things: our environment, our routine (or lack of it), our behaviour, and our thoughts/emotions. Here are our top tips for a better night’s sleep:

On top of these worries and anxieties, when we are aware that we’re not sleeping, that can make us anxious that we should be asleep and our stress levels rise, making it even harder to get to sleep.

One approach that can help with sleep is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT teaches people that trying to resist worry is unhelpful and instead we should just accept that this is the way things are right now and to stop fighting. Some people find it helpful to keep a notebook and pen by the bed to write things down in the night that they want to remember to do, or worries that they want to address the next day. Then there is the option to deal with it tomorrow.

An ACT approach also suggests that if you’re struggling to sleep you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that your body is still resting while you're lying in bed.

It is known that we tend to have poorer sleep as we get older; for example, many peri-menopausal and menopausal women find it really difficult to sleep at night. Also, conditions such as sleep apnoea, chronic pain and restless legs can interrupt sleep. If there are physical health problems that are affecting your sleep it is definitely worth seeking advice from your GP.

As a carer of a person with dementia you may be under a great deal of strain and looking after yourself, which includes getting enough sleep, is vital.

Challenges of sleep in dementia

Sleep difficulties can affect some people with dementia, and we are not yet clear as to why this occurs for some and not for others. It is thought it may be related to the dementia affecting the person’s internal biological clock which helps us to define the time of day, therefore the person starts to feel sleepy at the wrong time of day. The type of dementia you have can affect your sleep, such as Lewy Body Dementia, or Parkinson’s Disease Dementia which can cause the person to be sleepy during the day with very disturbed nights.

Disturbed sleep

Being active during the night time hours can be a common occurrence for a person with dementia. Research shows that it may affect up to 25% of people with mild to moderate dementia and 50% of people with severe dementia. 

The problems associated with disturbed sleep adds to the level of vulnerability and risks for the person including injury, leaving the home in the middle of the night and the impact on the sleep patterns of carers often leaving them fatigued and exhausted. Carers report disturbed sleep to be one of the most difficult and distressing things to deal with. Identifying and treating sleep issues is an important part of dementia care as this can alleviate stress for the person and carer and could potentially slow cognitive decline

Sleeping too much

People with dementia, especially those in the later stages, can often spend a lot of time sleeping both during the day and night and this can sometimes worry carers, friends and family. Excessive sleep is often due to the disease progressing and as the damage to a person’s brain becomes more extensive, they gradually become weaker and frailer over time.

Things that might help 

Download these infographics and keep it to hand