In this week’s Sleep Diaries, a 38-year-old communications professional wonders why she keeps waking up feeling so tired.

A little about me:

Age: 38

Occupation: communications professional

Number of hours sleep you get each night: 9 hours

Number of hours sleep you wish you got each night: 9-10 hours

Any officially diagnosed sleep-related problems: no, but I do clench my jaw and grind my teeth

How much water you drink on average per day: 2 litres

How much exercise I do on average per week: I take the dog for regularly walks

Day 1

After a busy long weekend visiting family in their gardens and a day spent in the park with friends, Sunday is a quiet day. I spend the day doing washing, some gardening on the balcony and take the dog for a short walk around the neighbourhood (she is exhausted from the weekend too!).

My partner and I sit down around 5pm to watch TV and read, then I have a couple of glasses of rosé wine while he cooks. We eat (salmon in tomato sauce with rice and spinach, followed by yoghurt) around 7pm in front of the TV. After that I go for a bath and chat to my mum on the phone, then head to bed around 9.30pm to read some more.

The bedroom is what my partner calls ‘hermetically sealed’ – I have to have it perfectly dark (despite the fact that I wear an eye mask), perfectly quiet and very cold. But this means that I usually fall asleep within minutes of turning off the light. This evening, though. the dog wakes us up at nearly 10.30pm as she needs to be let out for the bathroom again.

My partner takes her out, but it is past 11pm before I get back to sleep.

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