Why is Sleep important?

Sleep is important because it affects our mental, physical, and emotional well-being. The benefits of good sleep can affect every moment of our day and every part of our life. Achieving good sleep is essential to both our activities and to our health.

Sleep is an essential function that allows your body and mind to recharge, leaving you refreshed and alert when you wake up. Healthy sleep also helps the body remain healthy and stave off diseases. Without enough sleep, the brain cannot function properly. This can impair your abilities to concentrate, think clearly, and process memories.

Most adults require between seven and nine hours of nightly sleep. Children and teenagers need substantially more sleep, particularly if they are younger than five years of age. Work schedules, day-to-day stressors, a disruptive bedroom environment, and medical conditions can all prevent us from getting enough sleep.

The Sleep Charity 

The Sleep Charity is a national charity, based in South Yorkshire which provides advice and support to empower the nation to sleep better. They campaign to improve sleep support and access to high quality information, raise awareness of the value of a good night's sleep and promote understanding around the complexities of sleep. 

Their website includes a wide range of useful information about sleep for professionals, adults and children including guides, advice sheets and podcasts. They also run a national sleep helpline (03303 530 541) which operates on specific days and times (Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays 7-9pm and Mondays & Wednesdays 9-11am excluding bank holidays). Visit their website for more information.

Sleep Charity & Levitex 'Sleep posture' webinar recording

The Sleep Charity and Levitex Sleep have produced a video recording about sleep posture. If you watch the video, they would be grateful for your feedback - https://forms.office.com/e/9STf230pfu

The project reported  75% improvement in sleep quality!  The Sleep Charity and Levitex created this video to introduce the concept of Sleep Posture and the art of getting comfortable in bed.  44% of staff surveyed said they were up more than 3 times a night, and 79% said their sleep was fairly or very bad quality overall - if this sounds familiar check out this video for some simple tips that could make things a little bit better.  Staff who participated in the project reported a 64% reduction in sleep disturbance and 72% rated their sleep quality as fairly or very good - it is worth a try.

The team will be hosting Peer Support Sessions free for all staff to attend and chat with the team from Levitex about any questions regarding sleep comfort, broken sleep and sleep quality as well as sharing experience with your colleagues - the good, the bad, and hopefully the helpful!  Email SleepSupport@levitex.co.uk  to register your interest and we will send you the link.  

 

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Sleep posture webinar recording

Fatigue risk management for health & social care report

This report from the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors presents a roadmap for improving fatigue risk management in health and social care to improve patient safety and individual health workers' health and wellbeing.

Fatigue risk management for health and social care | CIEHF

Free apps for NHS colleagues which include sleep content

  • Unmind - this mental health app empowers staff to improve their wellbeing with scientifically backed assessments, tools, and training. It includes useful resources such as a “Sleep for Shift Work Course”. Once downloaded, state your organisation name as ‘NHS’, then create an account with your NHS email address. It is free for NHS colleagues until 30th June 2026.

NHS Employers webpage about sleep, fatigue and the workplace

This includes useful information, statistics, guidance for shift workers, advice for employers and employees, factors that impact sleep and case studies, plus links to lots of of useful resources. 

Visit the webpage here

Menopause and Sleep with

Dr Caitlin Chasser

To watch the recording of this session click here 

Useful Resources from Dr Chasser:

  • Free CBT-I for NHS Heros
    • For any NHS workers interested in free access to our Retrain Your Sleep CBT-I programme please ask them to email info@thesleepproject.life. We can then send them the login details and their free access code. If they have any colleagues who are also interested then again ask them to email our team.
  • Diagnose your Sleep!
    • For anyone who wants to take our sleep quiz to pinpoint where their sleep is going wrong, the link can be found here.
  • Can you help us by spreading the word?
    • Do you know someone else who suffers from sleep difficulties— either with their baby, child or as an adult? If so, please spread the love so we can share our message far and wide. Your friends and family are our friends and family too - if they drop us an email at info@thesleepproject.life and mention “Friends & Family” in the email subject line, we will be happy to offer them a 30% discount on any of our online programmes.