Good sleep is one of those things we’d all love to have a little more control over. Children and young people need more sleep than adults to function – but unfortunately, there are a lot of things that can impact our ability to get the amount of rest we need.

Whether it’s stress, illness, screen time, too little physical activity or too much caffeine, it doesn’t take much to throw our sleeping habits out of whack. Poor sleep can have a huge impact on our mental and physical health – and vice versa. If we’re struggling with our wellbeing, it’s often very difficult to sleep well, which then has a negative effect on our health. Most people will have difficulty with their sleep at some point, but ongoing or severe sleep problems need to be addressed. Lack of sleep can negatively affect our mood, concentration, weight, our ability to cope with stress and even how many spots and pimples we get. 

Neurodiversity, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can also impact sleep. If your sleep problems carry on for a long time and trying different sleep-inducing habits doesn’t work, or there’s no obvious reason why you can’t sleep, you may wish to talk to your GP, as this could impact your learning and overall wellbeing.

Clearly, general health has a massive part to play in getting enough rest. There are hundreds of health apps in your Digital Healthy Schools Library to help with improving sleep, making sure you’re getting enough exercise, building healthy habits and more – and you can use the filters at the top of the search page to make sure you find the best app for you.

So, how do we improve our sleep? There are a number of ways we can help ourselves sleep better – the first is to try to identify why we’re having trouble sleeping. For instance, energy drinks or several hours of staring at a screen right before bed are very likely to cause difficulties falling or staying asleep. Similarly, lying in bed going over and over our worries or stresses doesn’t allow our brains to enter the state of rest needed for sleep. 

A good sleep routine is key. This is called “sleep hygiene” (which doesn’t just mean clean bedding – although that definitely helps!). Essentially, it’s about creating a bedtime routine which helps us to wind down before bed. Creating a pattern to follow before going to bed helps your body and brain recognise that it’s time for sleep, and to settle into a restful state more easily. 

First, identify a realistic bedtime which will allow you to get 8-10 hours of sleep. Stick to this bedtime as closely as you can – even on weekends. Set a time period before this time, between 30 minutes and two hours, you should avoid sugar, caffeine, heavy exercise and screens. Before this, you could set a blue light filter on your screens, as this light tends to stimulate our brains. If you often find yourself laying in bed worrying, you might use this time period to make sure you’ve done everything you need to do for tomorrow, and maybe create a to-do list for the following day, which could help you feel more in control of your outstanding tasks. 

You may also want to try guided meditations, wind-down exercises or sleep story audios. There are loads of apps in your Digital Healthy Schools Library designed to help with sleep, try searching “sleep” or downloading one of our three top-rated sleep apps below. 

*Please note: these are the three top-rated apps with specific sleep improvement functions that do not require a subscription by an organisation or service.

United by business – Driving the industry forward

Arab Health is the leading medical equipment exhibition in the Middle East showcasing the latest innovations in healthcare. Along with a wide range of CME accredited conferences, Arab Health brings the industry together to learn, network and trade.

Our Business Development Director, George Kowalski, will be attending Arab Health in Dubai from the 21st-24th June. If you would like to find out more about the ORCHA solution and how we can help meet your digital health needs, please email George to arrange a meeting or call him on +971 058 510 7737.

ORCHA’s services include:

• National App Accreditation Services – We provide an effective app evaluation service for national health bodies that meets the scale of the market, pace of development, and breadth of test requirements.
• Bespoke App Library – To drive uptake of health and care apps, we provide tailored App Library sites, featuring a range of evaluated apps to help you meet the health and support challenges in your region. Our platform is safe, efficient and enables the best apps to be identified.
• App Prescription Service – Our App Libraries include a feature that offers professionals more advanced search options, allows them to save preferred apps, and even lets them recommend an app to a patient or service user.
• Consulting Services – Our team comprises experts from across the worlds of health and care, economics, data and information governance, technical design and security, user experience, and clinical safety and assurance, so we’re able to provide a fully informed service to meet your needs.

In 2020, for the first time, SEHTA organised a major new international event; aimed at SMEs, Corporates, Academics & NHS Healthcare Providers, designed to take the programme of support to another level. The event saw 42 Sponsors and Exhibitors from all over the UK, Europe and rest of the world, and over 230 delegates take part.  Due to the COVID-19 restrictions the 2020 event was delivered virtually.

For 2021, on Friday 8th October at the Hilton London Tower Bridge Hotel, the event will return as a hybrid – a combination of a live & virtual event, to ensure the expo can be delivered to as many people as possible – an attended live event blended with the best elements and convenience of a digital one.

ORCHA is delighted to be sponsoring the 2021 edition of the SEHTA International MedTech Expo & Conference.

Click here to register.

ORCHA Sponsorship and Review Offer:

ORCHA is driven to deliver trusted digital health, and our stand will offer a free digital health clinic for all delegates. Ask us about your favourite app, and we’ll tell you how it performs in our assessment.

If you’re looking for the best apps for a particular condition area, we can help you to find them. If you have developed or used an app that we haven’t reviewed, we’ll schedule it for an ORCHA Baseline Review free of charge.

As well as the acceleration of digital health over the past 15 months, there has been a huge buzz around the new standards for accreditation from NHSX, with the DTAC rapidly accelerating in importance as many buying organisations integrate this standard into their minimum requirements set. Complying with DTAC can seem like a hugely onerous undertaking, especially for a new innovator with limited resources, so we’re pleased to offer a 10% discount on our DTAC package for any innovators that sign up on the day.

Come along and visit our stand at our Expo, to meet with one of our reviewers/team members as we will be running a “digital health clinic” on our stand.

• Ask about your app’s score
• Ask for the top apps in a particular condition area

If you have an app or you want to ask ORCHA about an app that hasn’t been reviewed, we will place you in queue for an ORCHA Baseline Review, which is free of charge.

Register today for the event.

Special Offer of DTAC Review:
Delegates who sign up their innovation for a DTAC review at the expo will receive a 10% discount from ORCHA