Name: What to do when you can't sleep: 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2019-06-17T13:34:47.000Z
Duration: 6 min 33 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Neil: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I'm Neil.

Neil: Well, that's a coincidence, as our topic

- the condition some people suffer from when they find

it difficult to get to sleep when they go to bed.

Rob: Thankfully I don't really have insomnia,

but every now and again, I find it difficult to get to sleep.

Neil: Well, keep listening and we might have some

advice to help with that, but first, a question:

What is the record for the longest a human

So I've got to go with the shortest - about seven days.

Neil: Well, if you can stay awake long enough,

I'll let you know at the end of the programme.

Dr Michael Grandner is an expert in all things

He was interviewed recently on the BBC radio

He was asked what his best tip was to help

you get to sleep if you are finding it difficult.

Dr Michael Grandner: And it sounds counter-intuitive,

but trust me I've got decades of data behind

Neil: So Rob, how does he suggest you help yourself

Rob: Well actually, he says that the best thing

Neil: That sounds exactly the opposite of what you

Rob: Well, he does say that his advice is

counter-intuitive, which means exactly that.

That it is the opposite of what you might expect.

Neil: And he says that this advice is backed up

it's a general term for many years, at least 20.

Let's hear that advice again from Dr Grandner.

Dr Michael Grandner:  And it sounds counter-intuitive,

Neil: So why is getting out of bed good advice?

and you do that over, and over, and over again

the ability of the bed to put you to sleep

Not only that, it starts getting replaced

by thinking, and tossing and turning, and worrying,

and doing all these things. When you're not asleep,

get out of bed. This is probably one of the most

effective ways to prevent chronic insomnia.

It's also one of the really effective ways to treat it.

but it will actually work more than most people think.

Beds are designed to make it easy to sleep,

As Dr Grandner says, 'it dilutes the power of the bed

Rob: When you dilute something, you make it weaker.

For example, you can dilute the strength of a strong fruit

Neil: So if we stay in bed, tossing and turning,

which is the expression we use to describe

moving around in the bed trying to get to sleep,

we begin to think of the bed as place where we don't

sleep rather than as a place where we do sleep.

So, get out of bed to break the connection.

Rob: This he says is a positive way to approach

'Chronic' is an adjective that is used to describe

occasionally not being able to get to sleep,

but a condition where it happens every night.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

What to do when you can't sleep: 6 Minute English

chronic

extraordinary

approach

obvious