In this day and age, it’s a sad fact that almost three in ten people are suffering from either a lack of sleep or a decrease in the quality and restfulness of the sleep they are getting. This has all sorts of associated health risks, which is significant at both the individual level, and for our society as a whole.
There are two ways this can happen to you- first off, a simple deficit of time spent at rest. Now, everyone is different, and at different times in our lives, we all need different amounts of sleep. Whilst six to eight hours is normally stated as the normal standard, it’s more true to say that everyone has different needs for sleep, and everyone should always be striving to get enough sleep to feel energised and alert the next day.
So quantity’s the first thing to go for. There’s no real substitute for getting the hours in. There is a second issue, however, which can cause almost as many problems as the first. It’s not just the quantity of sleep that matters; it’s also the quality.
If your sleeping environment is compromised or disturbed, that can make for a restless and unproductive night’s sleep. This can be to do with a number of factors. One of these is the number of distractions in your sleeping space. In this era of computers, TVs, mobile phones and goodness knows what else, we are often over-stimulated when we go to sleep. It’s a good idea to keep one’s bedroom as a place which is primarily for sleep. If we don’t then can become harder to get one’s self into a restful mindset.
Another problem is extraneous noise, as anyone who lives near a road or a flightpath will tell you. Some sounds are soothing, like rain in summer, or the sound of the sea. Others, well, not so much.
This is where a partner’s snoring can really drive you mad. It can be an insidious thing, but over time as you wake up tired, it can really begin to drag on you. It doesn’t even have to wake you up completely to make a difference to the quality of your sleep, and it can become an unspoken killer in your relationship. Sleeping together can be the most wonderful expression of closeness and intimacy. If one person isn’t getting the rest they need, however, that can turn bad pretty quickly, and this malaise can cause real damage to a relationship.
If your partner snores, or you snore yourself, it’s got to be worth doing something about it. A good night’s sleep sets you up for a good day, and a good life. Don’t let snoring undermine it.
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