To sleep, perchance to dream is a forlorn hope for many of us.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But there is a Mount Isa researcher out there who can now explain why people are sleeping poorly and what they can do about it.
Dr Yaqoot Fatima is a senior research fellow at Mount Isa's Centre for Rural & Remote Health, James Cook university.
Recently she published a paper called "Sleep trajectories and mediators of poor sleep" in the Sleep Medicine journal which looked at findings from the longitudinal analysis of over 40,000 middle-aged UK patients over six years.
Dr Fatima's research found that that three out of five adults are poor sleepers and unhealthy lifestyle, shift work, depressive symptoms and obesity were all key risk factors linked with persistent poor sleep.
And that's even if people were getting the recommended hours sleep.
"One out of three adults who were sleeping for recommended hours was struggling with sleep problems and daytime sleepiness," Dr Fatima said.
"To optimise sleep health, we need to look beyond sleep duration and focus on the whole spectrum of sleep health issues."
Dr Fatima said doctors and patients should not assume poor sleep was a temporary problem that will go away by itself and early intervention was required,
"We need to move from sleeping so many hours to getting a good quality of sleep," she said.
"Good quality sleep is when you go to bed you fall asleep within 30 minutes, you don't wake up more than once during that sleep duration and when you wake up you feel refreshed - 85% of your time in bed should be spent sleeping not just tossing and turning."
Dr Fatima said factors that impeded quality sleep were shift work, obesity, poor health and socio-economic disadvantage.
"We can't change everything but we can intervene early so people can have a schedule that doesn't mess up their internal body clock," she said.
Dr Fatima said a lot of problems were behavioural that could be fixed.
"People should not exercise just before they go to bed, no spicy food or coffee before bed," she said.
"If shiftworkers are having problems over three months or over three nights a week they need to talk to their GP."
And sadly for many of us there is another 21st century culprit that Dr Fatima says is interrupting a good night's sleep.
"No checking your devices during the night," she said.
"Your bed is for sleeping and two hours before bed you should not be playing with your phone, it will trick your brain into thinking it is time to be active and will mess up your internal clock and you will be fighting against it."
SEE ALSO: Photos from the Cloncurry Ball
While you are here, subscribe to our weekly email delivered to your inbox every Tuesday and Friday.