Uncomfortable bed, pillow affects sleep?

London, Mar 4: You spend your day yawning, waiting for night to come but wake up the next day feeling all the more exhausted? According to a leading sleep reseacher, you could have joined the race of million others suffering from low-grade exhaustion.

And blame your bedtime, your pillow or even your night clothes that may be disturbing your sleep. A report published today states that even as people think they were sleeping well, but these things may be responsible for the toss and turns throughout the night, and therefore affecting both the quality and duration of sleep resulting in chronic tiredness. The recent statistics reveal that more than ten million people were too tired to get out of bed every day, even though many of them claimed to fall asleep within minutes of hitting the pillow.

Sleep expert Neil Stanley said the number of people suffering from sleep disturbance peaks at this time of year, with more than half the population experiencing some kind of sleep disturbance.

The sudden rise in fatigue was linked to changing routines, he said, adding, ''Holiday periods put many people's sleeping patterns out of sync because they usually go to bed late and sleep longer.'' It took several days to adjust to regular sleep patterns after a holiday or flight abroad. Losing an hour's sleep takes three days for body clocks to adjust. Many people, however, never get a chance to recover the sleep they lose in that time.

Uncomfortable beds and pillows also affect the sleeping patterns.

An uncomfortable pillow will affect the lying posture and aggravate, strain to the muscles in the shoulders, back and neck that can affect posture, breathing and even mood.

UNI