Tom Bradby health: ITV presenter on his ‘complete breakdown’ due to insomnia
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Tom Bradby, who has been producing news at ITN for 30 years, took a break from the cameras in 2018 due to his insomnia and addiction to the sleeping pill zopiclone. He has said how his wife had warned that he was close to a “very dangerous cliff-edge”.
Insomnia is a common sleep disorder when people find it hard to stay asleep and may wake up and still feel tired and is often triggered by stress or a traumatic event.
When the journalist returned to the public eye, he was met with publicity.
He wrote in iNews that he became the “unlikely poster boy” for mental health as people approached him to share their own mental health issues.
Although he said on a podcast it was “really nice” that people were doing this, he suggested that it was a symptom of a wider problem.
In the iNews piece, he said how it “continues today” and gave him the “clear impression that this country has a long way to go” in terms of understanding our mental health.
He argued that the stigma may have been reduced but that people still have little understanding of their own minds.
He described how he knows friends who recognise that “things are not right” but struggle to tackle the cause of their problems.
According to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), estimates of how many people suffer from the condition vary between five percent and 50 percent.
It’s especially common in people with comorbid conditions such as heart failure, chronic pain, and psychiatric conditions like depression and anxiety, according to NICE.
Bradby explained how there was “one advantage of having complete breakdown”.
“It leaves you wide open to the possibility of entirely rewiring your mental processes. In the depths of despair, what other choice is there?” he said.
There are several lifestyle factors that can make people more likely to develop chronic insomnia, according to Mayo Clinic.
Your work schedule has the potential to disrupt your body’s circadian rhythms or “internal clock”.
For example, frequently changing shifts or travelling across time zones can increase your risk.
Eating “too much” before bed may also make it more difficult to sleep as well.
A lot of people experience heartburn as a result of the backflow of acid and food into your throat, which is another factor that may keep you awake.
According to a survey by the insurance company Aviva, 23 percent of British adults don’t have more than five hours of sleep per night.
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