I fell asleep at the wheel after being awake for 72 hours because of crippling insomnia, I’m desperate for a cure

FOR many of us, the days are beginning to feel more normal following the Covid pandemic. By night, however, in bedrooms up and down the land, it’s a different story.

One of the lasting legacies of the past two years is the disruption to our sleeping habits, with experts even coining a new term for post-pandemic sleeplessness: “coronasomnia”.

In an exclusive poll for Fabulous, a quarter of people admitted that their sleep has got worse since the start of the pandemic. A huge 41% said they struggle to get to sleep, and for 29%, this is every night. Eleven per cent said their child’s sleep has also been affected.

A study published in the medical journal Sleep Medicine in November 2021 also revealed that in the early stages of the pandemic, more than 36% of people experienced clinical symptoms of insomnia and 17% met the criteria for insomnia disorder. These rates were double those of pre-pandemic levels.

Struggling to sleep is not a new problem, but it’s getting worse, according to Colin Espie, professor of sleep medicine at the University of Oxford.

“If you look at data on the most common mental health complaints, insomnia is usually highest,” he says. “Now we have people who’ve always struggled to sleep who are finding it even harder. But we also have people who previously didn’t think too much about sleep now having the same difficulties.”

So what’s to blame for this mass insomnia? Professor Espie says it’s down to our brains being on “hyper alert”.

“Alongside the viral pandemic, there’s been an associated pandemic of uncertainty, not just about our physical health but about people’s ability to work and income levels,” he explains.

“When we feel uncertain about something, it triggers a threat response in the brain and that leads to us being hyper alert. And if your brain is on high alert, you’ll find it harder to get to sleep.”

Disrupted routines have also contributed. “During the pandemic, many people didn’t have a set time to get up in the morning,” Professor Espie says. “And if they did, it was probably later than usual. At the other end of the day, they didn’t need to get to bed so early as there was no need to get up as early in the morning.

“Although at times we get frustrated by the routines we follow, they do help us, as sleep responds well to routine. Sleep is nature’s medicine,” Professor Espie adds. “It’s a fundamental priority, like oxygen or water. There are consequences of not sleeping well.

“It makes you more vulnerable to illness and puts you at risk of obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Poor sleepers are twice as likely to develop depression, and it also shortens life expectancy.

“Researchers from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute even found a person’s sleep cycle plays a key role in clearing out a protein that clumps up in the brain and may be an important contributory factor to dementia.”

The good news is there are practical steps you can take to help get a better night’s sleep.

Professor Espie recommends we follow a routine in the same way as kids do. “Most children have a routine with a bath, a story and bed. We need to find a similar pattern for ourselves, so learn what works for you.”

Decluttering your mind before bed can be helpful. “Spend time putting the day to rest before you go to bed. Think through what has been happening. It should be a part of your routine like getting into your pyjamas and brushing your teeth,” he says. 

“If you can’t sleep you need to break that cycle. Get up and do something else for a while. Go back to bed when you feel sleepy. Break the habit of lying in bed feeling annoyed, frustrated, anxious and worried. That is only making you more alert.”

Professor Espie encourages people to lie awake with their eyes open if they’re in bed and struggling to drift off. “When people try, they notice it is a struggle and can’t stay awake,” he explains. “Sleep is powerful. If you resist it gently, it will be irresistible.”

People who wake frequently in the night should follow the “quarter of an hour rule”.

“Good sleepers often fall asleep within a quarter of an hour. Give yourself that opportunity. If it doesn’t happen, cut your losses, get up and remove yourself from the bedroom, so that you break that link between lying awake and being in bed.”

Good sleepers often fall asleep within a quarter of an hour. Give yourself that opportunity. If it doesn’t happen, cut your losses, get up and remove yourself from the bedroom, so that you break that link between lying awake and being in bed.

Colin Espie, professor of sleep medicine at the University of Oxford

Common advice such as avoiding coffee and keeping your phone out of the bedroom can help but shouldn’t be taken too seriously, according to the Professor.

“These are things that can potentially interfere with sleep, but it’s not having a huge effect.

“If you drink coffee at night, research suggests that can delay you falling asleep for between four and six minutes. That is not a major effect.”

Sleeping tablets can help in the short term, but only under doctors’ advice and only if CBT has failed, he says.

“CBT is recognised in all medical guidelines as the first-line treatment recommended for insomnia,” he says. “It addresses the underlying causes of insomnia and can have lasting benefits for people with chronic sleep issues.”

Professor Espie has developed an app, Sleepio, which offers CBT to poor sleepers. It’s currently only available in Scotland and Northampton, but as it is rolled out further he hopes it will reduce the 14 million prescriptions for sleep medications in the UK each year.

“We hope that making CBT treatment available to more people via an app, without the need to see someone face to face, will help many people with their sleep and begin solving this insomnia epidemic,” he says.

The NHS also has a great webpage offering advice for people having trouble sleeping ().

Over the page we reveal how coronasomnia has affected the lives of three women in different ways.

‘I fell asleep at the wheel after staying awake for three days’

Sarah Stoddart-Burrows, 39, a business improvement manager, lives in Hampshire with her husband James, 42, a personal trainer. She says:

“Opening my eyes, I gasped in horror as my car hit the grass verge in front of me. Realising I’d fallen asleep at the wheel of my car, after 72 hours awake, I felt sick at the thought of how much worse it could have been. Fortunately, I was in slow traffic and nobody was hurt, but I could have killed myself or someone else.

When the pandemic began, I worked in financial services, but my contract came to an end as lockdown hit and there were no new roles. And with gyms closed, my PT husband James couldn’t work either.

Initially we were unable to claim furlough, so we went from having a healthy income to nothing overnight. We had two cars on finance, a mortgage, plus some credit card debt from a past holiday. We had savings, but with our outgoings, it didn’t take long for those to dry up. 

I sat down to work out our finances and realised we only had enough money to buy food for another five weeks. I felt stressed and in a constant state of panic.

We both took on any part-time work we could find, including packing Covid tests in a local factory, but our income was still drastically reduced.

I started to struggle to fall asleep at night, my mind racing with worry about money. Sometimes I’d get to sleep for a few hours, but then be wide awake again. By May 2020, I was going for days at a time on no sleep at all, my body exhausted but my mind refusing to switch off. I’d suffer from hallucinations when I was in one of these terrible sleepless cycles, seeing spiders around me. James was so supportive but it was terrifying.

Even after the first lockdown ended, my sleep didn’t recover and two years on, it still hasn’t. In August 2020, I saw my GP and was prescribed sleeping tablets, which I still take — though not every night, as their effect wears off the more you use them. Without them, I still have times where I can go three days with no sleep.

I started working full-time again in June 2021 and do a 90-mile round commute twice a week — I couldn’t afford to be fussy about the driving time as I needed the job. My accident in January this year shocked me deeply and now, if I feel too tired, I work from home instead.

Living with insomnia has left me exhausted, both physically and emotionally. I feel trapped by it.

I’ve never been offered CBT and have only just learned it is available on the NHS, so I intend to speak to my GP about it. I’m desperate for a solution so I can start getting my life back on track.”

‘I’d lie awake terrified of bringing Covid home from work’

Carmelah Hulse

Carmelah Hulse, 42, is a nurse and lives in Manchester with her husband Daniel, 45, a telecoms manager, and their children Ethan, 10, and Megan, five. She says:

“Pre-pandemic, I was a great sleeper. I’d nod off at 10pm and sleep deeply for around eight hours, waking in the morning feeling happy and refreshed.

Now, my nights couldn’t be more different and I fear that my sleep pattern will never return to normal. Some nights I’m still awake at 3am.

I’m a nurse and when the pandemic struck in March 2020, my working life became hugely stressful and scary. At first, we didn’t have enough PPE and I lived in fear of catching Covid and passing it to my family and particularly my mother, who is clinically vulnerable.

Every day I saw colleagues getting sick. I was nursing very poorly patients, people were dying. I’d go home wondering whether I could have done my job better. Should I have stayed to help my colleagues who were overrun?

Initially, there were no spaces at my kids’ school for them to attend as key worker children, so I was also supporting them with homeschooling.

My sleep gradually deteriorated. I’d go to bed early in the hope of getting a good night’s sleep, but I’d start worrying and couldn’t switch my mind off. When I did fall asleep, I’d wake in the middle of the night and get up to make lists of all the things I had to do.

After a while, I’d give up trying to get back to sleep and go downstairs to watch TV or clean the house. I’d be up until 3am and had to be up for work at 5am. 

I was exhausted. Daniel was very supportive and picked up a lot of the slack at home, helping to look after the kids and doing chores. He works full-time and also had to homeschool the children during lockdown while I was working.

Things remain very busy at work and we’re still feeling the effects of Covid. My sleep is still terrible. I’ve tried everything from using a lavender spray on my pillows to massage and even taking up running. I go out for a walk with the dogs in the evening to relax and make sure I don’t watch TV too late. But whatever I try, nothing has restored my sleep pattern to how it used to be, but I still have hope this will change. 

It has been very hard and I feel completely exhausted. I’ve learned to just keep going — life doesn’t stop simply because you’ve had a bad night. I have to hope that one day soon, I will sleep well again.”

‘Long Covid has wrecked my sleep — most nights I wake every hour’

Kate Wilson

Kate Wilson, 30, works in admin and lives in Jersey with her partner Will, 28. She says:

“Looking at my bedside clock, I sighed. I knew yet another long night of broken sleep lay ahead, followed by a day of feeling drained. 

Before catching Covid in July 2020, I’d sleep for nine or 10 hours straight. I’d worked as a midwife for eight years, and while colleagues struggled to sleep after a night shift, I never did.

Disrupted sleep was one of my main symptoms when I caught Covid, along with low blood pressure, a cough and feeling generally unwell. I assumed that when I recovered, so would my sleep, but it never happened. I worried that I’d make mistakes at work due to tiredness, though thankfully I never did.

Since then, I’ve tried everything from over-the-counter sleep medication to herbal tea — none of it has worked. Night after night I toss and turn next to my partner Will, who’s a deep sleeper.

In January 2021, I was diagnosed with long Covid by my GP, who said my sleep issues were caused by the illness. After that, I changed jobs, taking on a healthcare admin role alongside the odd midwifery shift. No early starts or late nights was a big selling point — it hasn’t helped my sleep, though.

In December last year, I was prescribed a medication called zopiclone for insomnia, but it didn’t fix the problem, so I stopped taking it.

I’ve been referred to a long Covid clinic and have recently started an antihistamine treatment, which doctors hope will help me sleep better.

I’m waiting on tests, as they believe Covid might also have triggered postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS), an abnormal increase in heart rate that can affect sleep.

I’ve been living with sleeplessness for so long, it’s the norm now. 

I’m not hopeful of finding a cure, in case it doesn’t happen and I have to accept this is my life now.”