Over the course of my career of performing sleep studies, Ive heard a lot of the same complaints from people.

Im tired but I can't fall asleep at night. I just can't turn off my brain.

I fall asleep easy enough, but I wake up through out the night for no reason.

I sleep fine, if only I didn’t have to use the restroom multiple times during the night.

Im told I snore but it doesn’t really bother me.

I remember when my doctor first asked me, “how do you sleep?”To which I responded, “I Sleep fine.” I would later learn that I had no idea at that time what fine sleep was. Im reminded of this whenever a patient tells me they sleep just fine. Only to later witness their apneas first hand behind the safety of my monitoring system.

Its true there are always problems going on in our day to day lives that can cause us to lay awake at night. Some things we can’t avoid. When it comes to sleep however, there’s more we can be doing.

We might have stress from our jobs that follows us home and into the night. Troubles with family and friends and all sorts of unforeseeable circumstances. While these common social problems may certainly keep our sleepy minds occupied. The truth is, once you actually fall asleep, none of these things come into play anymore.

Instead there's a whole other part of your body at work. A series of biological systems at play. There is a plan here and these biological systems work together to execute it. The goal is to sleep thoroughly, and allow the body to heal, grow, and revitalize itself. Only it is far easier said than done. There are many things that can disrupt our progress though these sleep cycles. Understanding them is the key to overcoming them.

While certainly there’s little I can do to help with your every day challenges, but giving you control over your sleep health will ensure that you are well restored and better equipped to handle whatever challenges the day has in store.