Like breathing, sleep is usually taken totally for granted until you have a problem with it. Then it becomes of huge interest, and great lengths are often taken to restore sound, restful sleep.

Hyperventilation is strongly linked to poor sleep, with the following scenario typically occurring:

Sleeping badly often causes you to be so exhausted that the next night you fall asleep immediately, only to wake three or four hours later with a dry mouth and needing to go to the bathroom.  If you have asthma, then you probably also need a puff of your reliever.  

Now you are restless, not really asleep, yet not awake either, and deep sleep only comes again when it is close to the time to get up. Consequently in the morning you feel tired and perhaps even worse than when you went to bed. If this isn’t bad enough, you might also wake up with a dry, foul tasting mouth, bad breath and a blocked nose. 

The tossing and turning you experience during the night can give you a bad hair day every morning, bags under your eyes, and the blankets all over the floor.

‘I NEVER get enough sleep!’ is the common complaint, while you cough or blow your nose through half a box of tissues.

There are many problems a person can have with sleep, but the most common are insomnia, snoring, sleep apnoea, restless leg syndrome, excessive thirst or urination, and nightmares. In order to solve a sleep problem, it is best to first understand it.

Take a look at each section to find out how and why these problems occur, and what you can do to correct the problem.