Dear Therapist: I have sleep fatigue

I oversleep everyday. And still wake up feeling fatigued. I feel like I don’t get sound sleep as I end up sleeping till late hours of the morning and it’s very hard for me to wake up even with my alarm. I don’t know how I can overcome this as I’ve tried to do many things for it over the years but this habit just doesn’t change.

— Anushka L.

Dear Writer, your insomnia may not be an isolated problem and you will have to explore other concerns that have lead to such disruptions in sleep cycle. You are trying to compensate for the lack of quality of sleep at night by ‘oversleeping’ but that won’t help. I would like you to look for other issues that you may have ignored or minimised or not yet recognised; say for example, your mood throughout the day, worries that torment you or the kind of life you have had since the sleep problems propped up. Such a holistic analysis will help you understand why you fail to sleep at the right hours. Additionally, it is recommended that you consult a mental health professional who can guide you to address this long standing problem.

(Got a query about mental health? Email us on wknd@khaleejtimes.com)

• Dubai