As a sleep specialist in the NHS I often get presented with lots of different types of supposed sleep cures that can fix insomnia. But do these work?

The reality is that they don’t work.

The reason is that insomnia is a pattern of behaviour that happens over time.

No amount of things that we do – like lotions or techniques from the internet –are going to suddenly fix a long-term repetitive behaviour that’s become a problem.

At the end of the day, if we have an eye problem we wouldn’t go to the internet to find the solution… we would go to the opticians. When we have a back problem we go to the physio….

But when it comes to sleep we tend to talk to family and friends, or go online to look for 20 top tips. Is it any wonder that those kinds of things just don’t work? There are actually many of us qualified sleep specialists who can help you treat your insomnia in the right way

So forget the snake oil, forget all these things, and come and get treated properly.