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Getting to sleep and staying asleep when ill can be frustrating, but there are ways to be more successful in getting a decent night's sleep.


Rest and sleep during illness are essential as it is during sleep that the body heals itself best. Unfortunately, long term illness can be disruptive to sleep, but there are ways to cope.

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Steps

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    Contact your doctor if your problem is truly severe and you are not sleeping at all or are unable to fall asleep several nights in a row. There are now many medications that help you fall asleep that are not habit-forming and have minimal side effects. There are also natural substances available at your pharmacy or health food store (melatonin and Valerian, for example) that many people have found useful, but if you are experiencing a chronic or long-term illness it is imperative that you check with your doctor prior to taking any over-the-counter medication. Even over-the-counter drugs can have unintended consequences for your condition or unwanted interactions with your prescription medications.
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    Speak with your doctor if you have pain that is keeping you awake as it is possible that your medications can be altered for a nighttime dose.
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    Try to determine which type of problem you are having. Falling asleep and staying asleep are actually two somewhat different problems. There are those people who, once they manage to fall asleep, sleep quite well for several hours at a stretch, and there are those people who fall asleep fairly easily but find they wake up after a couple of hours and are then unable to fall back asleep. Chances are your difficulty is one or the other, not both.
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    Try to stay out of bed during the day if you are having trouble falling asleep, even if you are ill if at all possible. Reserve the bed for sleeping not for watching TV, eating or reading. Use an easy chair, recliner or a couch for stretching out on during the day, and save your bed for sleeping. You will begin to subconsciously associate the bed with sleep rather than with other activities.
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    Try falling asleep in the hammock in the summertime. There is no reason that a hammock and stand have to stay outdoors. Some people sleep better when they have that rocking motion.
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    Try to stay awake during the day. Remember that as someone with an illness, you probably are not using up a lot of energy and your body just might not need much sleep. Even though your brain is tired, your body might not be ready to go to bed. Sleeping during the day disrupts your sleep cycle and makes it harder for you to fall asleep at night as that daytime sleep gets subtracted from the total hours you'll sleep in a 24-hour cycle. More sleep during the day equals less sleep at night.
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    Try to get some exercise during the day, if your condition permits, so your body as well as your mind feel tired at the end of the day. It can be as simple as raising your arms up and down or lifting your legs one by one when seated. There are exercise tapes and exercise programs tailored for people with limited strength and mobility. Explore these as they might be what you need until you get better.
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    Do your exercise early in the day, not within a few hours of bedtime.
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    Get some sun during the day. Exposure to sunlight triggers the creation of certain chemicals in your brain that help regulate when you fall asleep and wake up. Chances are you've been inside and not getting a lot of sunshine. If you can't get outside, sit near a sunny window. If it's dark and gray outside, invest in a full-spectrum light bulb available at most do-it-yourself and hardware stores.
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    Keep the bedroom on the cool side. People sleep better when the room temperature is in the mid-to-high 60 °F (16 °C).
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    Keep your environment quiet. If there is nothing you can do about the noise source, try soft earplugs for sleeping, or a white noise machine, or both.
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    Keep the room dark. Draw the shades, pull the curtains. Use drapery liners that block out the light. But if you know you will be awakening during the night to use the bathroom in a very dark room then follow safety precautions in using nightlights. There are now nightlights that are motion sensors that stay dark during the night to let you sleep but light up as you walk near. Ask your hardware or do-it-yourself store about this.
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    Avoid action-packed television or watching the news just prior to going to bed at night.
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    Try to give yourself a small holiday every night even though putting your worries aside is difficult to do for anyone especially so when you are ill. There's nothing you can do about your problems at 2:00 a.m. so what's the sense in thinking about them?
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    Have a "wind-down" routine when you get into bed. It may be thinking of a pleasant memory or scene, or rubbing hand cream on your hands, or "swimming" gently on the sheets in nice, slow motions relaxing your muscles, or repeating certain words to yourself over and over in your head as these create a mellow state of mind.
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    Loosen the bedclothes at the bottom of the bed to avoid foot and leg cramps, and avoid sleep clothes that constrict or confine.
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    Try to stick to a routine bedtime, weekends and holidays included.
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    Ask your bed-partner to move to another bed if you fall asleep normally but have difficulty staying asleep while sharing a bed. During the night, a sleeper's body is constantly shifting and conforming to changes in pressure on the skin. Your partner's position changes in the bed may be waking you up. The same goes for pets. Play with them during the day, but keep them out of your bedroom or off your bed at night.
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    Try to limit liquids after 6:00 p.m. if you are waking up frequently to use the bathroom. Use a nightlight or a low-wattage bulb in the bathroom, and avoid turning on an overhead light as it will wake you up even more.
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Tips

  • Remember - it's annoying and frustrating not to be able to fall asleep or stay asleep especially when you are ill but lack of sleep itself is not making your condition worse. Try to keep that in mind.
  • Contact The National Sleep Foundation and visit their website.
  • Many people think that getting less than 8 hours of sleep a night means they aren't getting enough sleep. As people age, the amount of sleep they get per night will lessen naturally. There is no "magic rule" about having 8 hours sleep per night. Even if someone is sleeping in 1- or 2-hour increments, when added up over the course of the night, it may be an enough sleep.
  • The majority of the benefit of sleeping is actually just plain resting. If you can't fall asleep, simply resting will accomplish a lot for your body in terms of healing so you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are still doing good for yourself even if you aren't asleep.
  • If you can't fall asleep even though you aren't ill, read How to Fall Asleep
  • If tossing and turning is making you feel miserable, then don't try so hard - turn on a light, get up, do something you enjoy or a chore to have you get out of the way. At least you will be doing something fun or productive so that you don't feel frustrated. Maybe sleep will come later that night, and there's always tomorrow night.
  • When you are ill it is often pain that stops you from sleeping well - try creating a soothing smell in the bedroom using herbal oils that you can drop on the pillow or somewhere else; lavender is traditionally used to help people sleep, because the smell of it is very calming.
  • Try not to take any drugs with alcohol right before going to bed because it can dehydrate you.

Warnings

  • Never take over-the-counter medications or dietary supplements without checking with your doctor if you're taking prescription medications or currently under a doctor's care.
  • Persistent difficulty in falling asleep or early awakening over several weeks may be a sign of illness and should be brought to the attention of your doctor.

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