Sleepiness is more complicated than we might think. If we don't sleep as well or for as long as we believe we should, the idea of sleepiness lingers, and we might feel its effects more than we should. In addition, if we believe we aren't sleeping well, we are likely to worry about it and sleep worse.

Dr Leon Lack is director of the sleep research laboratory at Flinders University in South Australia and is, with his team, developing a new treatment for insomnia (difficulty getting to sleep and staying asleep).

“The true nature of sleep is like a rollercoaster,” said Dr Lack. He explained that though most people believe – due in part to a lot of media mythology – that normal sleep is a long period of uninterrupted sleep, we actually come in and out of deep sleep throughout the night. During these movements from deeper to lighter sleep, it's normal to wake up periodically. Adolescents, he said, usually don't remember waking up because the instances are shorter. As we grow older the instances are longer and so we are likely to take more notice.

“Older adult sleep is lighter and more fragmented with more awakenings,” said Dr Lack. “It's important for people to realise that it's normal to wake through the night.” If we worry about these moments of waking we exacerbate the problem.

If this worry develops into an anxiety about our sleep it can lead to insomnia, the most common sleep disorder. It affects five to ten per cent of the general population and ten to twenty per cent of the older population. It's associated with daytime fatigue and distress.

It's important, said Dr Lack, not to confuse insomnia with being sleepy. “People with insomnia,” he said, “don't feel sleepy but they feel exhausted – they are two different things. We have to be careful of the terminology we use.” By linking sleepiness with insomnia sleepiness is given greater weight, and the concept of insomnia gets confused.

The most common treatments of insomnia are self-medication through alcohol or antihistamines, prescription drugs such as benzodiazepines and anti-depressants, and cognitive and behaviour therapy.

One of the best treatment options for insomnia, according to Dr Lack, should include treating the misconceptions of insomnia, and providing correct feedback about sleep.

For more information about the Sleep Research Laboratory or to read an article published in in the Medical Journal of Australia and co-authored by Dr Leon Lack, on the benefits of napping for health professionals, see the links below.

Sleep Research Laboratory