When it comes to sleep, one of the important things is time. The time you go to bed, the amount of time you sleep, the quality of the time you sleep and the regularity of your bedtime and waking time.

I have never slept well and even though I follow the guidelines of not eating late, avoid caffeine, sleep in a relatively cold room (my thermometer reads around 18 degrees C) and avoid ‘blue light’ ie using the computer/tablet in bed, I still find it increasingly difficult to sleep more than 1 hour at a time.

I am now on a clinical trial for my Prostate Cancer which involves a massive amount of hormone treatment both in terms of daily tablet taking and intravenously (during my 3 weekly visits to our local hospital.)

So having spent all my life avoiding Doctors Surgeries and certainly any form of medication, I now take 8 pills a day, 3 to control my visits to the toilet at night, 1 to control my underactive Thyroid and 4 hormone tablets, prescribed as part of the trial.

There was some discussion with my Oncologist about sleeping tablets but I have avoided these because it’s another pill(s) to take and I know they are addictive! One surprise though was that he suggested acupuncture and fortunately we know a classically-trained acupuncturist. So I now have had two sessions with him – only time will tell if this alternative treatment benefit me?

I do have to sleep in the afternoon because by the time it’s around 2 pm I am exhausted (I do get up around 6.30 – 7.00) and the annoying thing is I generally sleep soundly during this time.

Because of my osteo-arthritis I cannot now walk a great distance i.e. exercise much, but I am managing to go the gym twice a week where I mainly concentrate on my arthritic knees.
Speaking to my ‘gym buddies’ I am not alone in this sleep deprivation and I suspect I can put a lot of it down to the treatment I am receiving.

So, in conclusion I appear to be doing the right thing in terms of environment and diet so can only really put the above down to my treatment! Having said that I am seeing an improvement since taking the Thyroid medication so watch this space – more to follow……….