Did you want sleep knowledge? From experts? In easily digestible form? If yes, then the day is looking up for you.
A little while back, I was part of a conversation with Associate Professor Amy Reynolds.
We were talking about sleep.
Strangely, that conversation led me to write a non-sleep-focused article about the problems with generic advice, something which I peddle in daily.
Since then, I’ve had a few more conversations with Amy about sleep resources that she and her colleagues have been developing for Flinders students.
The first of those was a sleep clinic. If you study medicine, paramedicine or nursing, there is a good chance you have already heard about it through your lecturers. If not, check in with me.
More recently, Amy sent through a set of posters focused on different sleep disorders, including insomnia, delayed sleep-wake phase disorder, hypersomnolence, obstructive sleep apnoea and restless legs syndrome. The posters outline some of the signs that might suggest something more than “just a bad night’s sleep” is going on, and where students can start looking for help.
There are also additional resources on the way, including videos.
I’ll be honest: I spent a little too long agonising over the “best” way to share these resources.
Should they be their own post? Part of a bigger sleep resource? A campaign? A landing page? A downloadable guide? An interpretive dance? A badly programmed sleep robot?
And while I was thinking about the ideal way to present them, I wasn’t actually sharing them. Which, for those paying close attention, is a neat little lesson in perfectionism (if I can’t do the perfect thing, I shall do nothing at all!!)
So, working on the idea that the best antidote to inaction is action, attached to this post you’ll find the main poster resource Amy sent through about different sleep disorders and the types of help that may be available. You might want to just check these out for yourself. Or perhaps you are in charge of a space where displaying such posters would make sense.
When the additional resources come through, I’ll share those as well.
Eventually, we’ll pull these together into a more complete sleep resource. But I didn’t want to wait until everything was perfectly packaged before making these available.
Sleep is one of those foundational lifestyle components that can affect both our physical and mental health. When sleep is disrupted, study can feel harder, mood can take a hit, concentration can drop, motivation can disappear, and everyday life can become much more effortful. I know that if I don’t get enough sleep my a$$hole quotient goes through the roof (not a formal diagnosis).
And of the stressors affecting students specifically, sleep is one of the big ones.
From Amy’s work, it appears to be a particular issue for students managing shift work, whether that is part of life balance, paid employment, placements, or the training itself — for example, in medicine and other health-related programs.
What I appreciate about Amy’s work is that she is not simply saying “students should sleep better”. She is helping build better resources, better pathways and better supports for students whose sleep problems may be more complex than generic sleep hygiene advice can address.
And yes, for the record, Amy is a legend. Not that my endorsement is required for that status to be official, but I have informally applied the label.
