Stanley – Interview 21
Stanley has been retired for nearly 30 years. Since his retirement he has had a major illness and an accident, both which disturbed his sleep, but he is now feeling a lot better and believes his sleep is improving slowly. He keeps himself very active, doing his own shopping, cooking and cleaning most of the time and believes it is important to keep busy during the day.
Whilst he was working as a Dairy Manager Stanley started work at 4 am every day and that, combined with having a very physically demanding job, meant he used to sleep very well. He believes he is sleeping less well now because he is not as active as he used to be.
Stanley does try to keep himself busy during the day and will also make an effort to go out if the weather is nice, because he believes even half an hour in the sun makes you feel better and helps you to get on with things during the day. Stanley has an exercise bike and a treadmill and tries to go on those every day, as well as doing regular stretching exercises to keep himself flexible. In spite of having a major illness and a serious accident in recent years, Stanley manages to look after himself mostly, and does his own cleaning, ironing and shopping, although he does miss being able to go out in his garden which he used to really enjoy.
Stanley finds that he will sometimes wake up in the night and take a while to go back to sleep. Occasionally, he will read when he can’t get back to sleep, otherwise he will try and tell himself to relax and exclude any thoughts from his mind, and he often finds that helps him get back to sleep.