The Hour

02 March 2010, 15:38

March is officially National Bed Month, a time in the year when the Sleep Council urges people to realise just how important a good night’s sleep.

Quality of sleep can be affected by all sorts of factors, from eating too late on, to having disturbing dreams. Even the moon’s phase can affect how restful our sleep is, as sleep psychologist Ian Wallace explained.

“It can do it in two ways - one is that it’s very bright so if you have thin curtains the moonlight will leak through and make your room light and keep you awake,“ Ian said.

“But also our sleep is a very rhythmic thing. We sleep in rhythms and anything around that has a rhythm as well, like the moon, will affect our sleep rhythms, and make you a bit more restless.”

With over 30 years of experience in analysing dreams, working out the meanings behind around 70,000, Ian has come across all sorts of weird and wonderful dreams and nightmares.

However, he says that most of us actually dream about roughly the same things, including being chased, our teeth falling out and falling, and it’s just the way our minds interpret them that differs.

We all dream even if we don’t remember them, and it’s an important part of our development, as Ian explained: “Why we dream is to remember who we really are and to connect with who we could be, so just trying to get a real sense of self, who we are, what our needs are and what our beliefs are."

He added: “Nightmares always start off as very gentle dreams and then because we don’t pay attention to them in waking life they start to turn up the volume and shout at us until we start paying attention to them.”

To make sure you’re getting the best night’s rest possible, Ian says we should make our bedroom as peaceful and restful as possible, which means TVs, computers and anything like iPhones and Blackberries should be kept out

Updating an old mattress and bed is also a good thing to do and can work wonders for improving poor sleeping patterns.

if you’d like to find out a bit more about sleeping patterns, how to improve your sleep, or National Bed Month, take a look at www.sleepcouncil.com. Find out more about Ian and dream analysis by visiting www.ianwallace.co.uk.
 

Last updated: 02 March 2010, 15:48