Section:GDN 1N PaGe:7 Edition Date:190730 Edition:03 Zone: Sent at 30/7/2019 0:08 cYanmaGentaYellowbla
Tuesday 30 July 2019 The Guardian •••
National^7
▲ ‘The system is crumbling and not
fit for purpose’: Samantha Morton as
Kirsty in I Am Kirsty
PHOTOGRAPH: JOSS BARRATT/CHANNEL 4health problems including depression,
as well as diffi culties in functioning
and accidents. Sleeping pills are not
recommended for long-term use as
they can have side-eff ects and pose a
risk of addiction.
Instead, the researchers say, the
best treatment is a programme of
changes to the way an individual
approaches and thinks about sleep.
These include staying away from the
bed when awake, challenging atti-
tudes about sleep loss and restricting
the number of hours spent in bed.
Writing in the British Journal of
General Practice , Davidson and col-
leagues report how they examined the
results from 13 previous studies on the
provision of CBT for insomnia through
primary care.
In some of these studies, partici-
pants were also taking medication to
help them sleep.
The results showed CBT for
insomnia was eff ective and led to
improvements in sleep that were still
evident at a follow-up many months
later.Nicola Davis
Forget counting sheep and drinking
warm milk. Instead, an eff ective way
to tackle chronic insomnia is cogni-
tive behavioural therapy , researchers
have confi rmed.
The authors of a new study on CBT
for insomnia, from Queen’s University
in Ontario, Canada, say that although
the therapy is eff ective, it is not being
used widely enough, with doctors hav-
ing limited knowledge about it and
patients lacking access.
“There is a very eff ective treatment
that doesn’t involve medication that
should be available through your pri-
mary care service. If it’s not, it should
be,” said Judith Davidson, a co-author
of the study.
Chronic insomnia, in which indi-
viduals have diffi cult y dropping off
or staying asleep at least three nights
a week for three months or more,
is thought to aff ect about 10-15% of
adults. The condition is linked to
Looking at results from four
randomised control trials, with
between 66 and 201 participants of
mixed ages, the team found that par-
ticipants fell asleep on average nine
to 30 minutes sooner after complet-
ing a course of CBT and experienced
a reduction of between 22 and 36 min-
utes in the amount of time spent awake
after going to sleep.
By contrast, those on a waiting list or
given treatment as usual experienced
only up to four minutes’ improvement
in the time it took to drop off , and amaximum of eight minutes’ improve-
ment in the time spent awake after
going to sleep.
The team said it seem ed that four
to eight sessions of CBT were required
for such improvements. An additional
trial found little benefi t if only two CBT
sessions were off ered.
Davidson said the new study sup-
port ed the idea that CBT for insomnia
could and should be off ered through
GPs. The therapy itself could be deliv-
ered by nurses, social workers or other
primary care providers.
In the UK, she said, increasing
access might be possible through
IAPT (improving access to psychologi-
cal therapies) services, health visitors
or even specialist apps and websites
such as Sleepio, which is available
free through the NHS in some parts
of south-east England.
Prof Helen Stokes-Lampard, the
chair of the Royal College of General
Practitioners, welcomed the study.
She said: “ CBT tailored to insomnia
has been a fi rst-line treatment option
for some time, and we know many
patients have found it benefi cial, so
it is really positive that its eff ective-
ness has been shown by this research .”
But Stokes-Lampard added that
access to CBT through the NHS var-
ied across the country and that it could
be diffi cult to come by, and this needed
to be addressed.Anti-racism
activists end
occupation at
Goldsmiths
university
Kevin RawlinsonAnti-racism campaigners have ended a
long-running occupation on a univer-
sity campus, saying the institution has
met their demands.
The activists took control of Dept-
ford town hall on the Goldsmiths,
University of London campus in March
and demanded that a series of meas-
ures be taken. Relations between the
south London institution and Gold-
smiths Anti-Racist Action became
severely strained as the university
sought and won a high court order
against the occupation.
But in an open letter to students and
staff yesterday, the acting warden, Prof
Elisabeth Hill, acknowledged the “pas-
sion and commitment” the activists
had shown. “While [university man-
agement] cannot condone some of
their means of protest, they have pro-
vided us with a wake-up call to take
action by sharing their experience and
insight,” she wrote.
The 137-day protest ended at the
weekend after hours of talks that
dragged into Friday evening – despite
a court order having been granted in
the university’s favour earlier that day.
The campaigners announced their
decision, saying they had “won exten-
sive demands to combat institutional
racism at the university”.
In her letter, Hill said both sides had
agreed to make compromises and that
the university would introduce man-
datory “race awareness” training for
staff and review its anti-discrimination
and harassment procedures, among
other measures.
The activists had also sought to
tackle gentrifi cation, outsourcing and
cuts to course provision. The parties
agreed that the local community
should be allowed to use the occupied
building, that security staff should be
brought in-house and that lost contact
hours should be reinstated.
They also agreed that scholarships
for Palestinian students, won by a pre-
vious student occupation 10 years ago,
should be reinstated. The two scholar-
ships would return for the start of the
2020-21 academic year.
But the document was also pep-
pered with disclaimers from the
activists, in which they noted that
further protest action would follow if
the university failed to live up to the
promises it had made.▲ Campaigners on a balcony at the
Deptford town hall. Their occupation
of the building ended at the weekendActor’s plea to
government:
stop austerity
forcing women
into sex work
Sarah Marsh
The Oscar- nominated actor Saman-
tha Morton has pleaded with the
government to address the impact of
austerity on women, warning that they
are increasingly being forced into sex
work and homelessness.
Morton said: “I am pleading with
this government ... to not just farm
us all off as lefties, liberals or what-
ever, but to have a serious look at the
implications of what has happened
with cutbacks.”
The actor, known for Woody
Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown and Ste-
ven Spielberg’s Minority Report , said:
“Homelessness is so much more of an
issue for women now. There are vari-
ous factors for that, such as the closure
of women’s refuges. Women in abu-
sive relationships now have nowhere
to go. So there are women – often in
rural areas – staying in horrifi c places
so they have a roof over their heads.”
Morton spoke to the Guardian
ahead of the release of her latest Chan-
nel 4 fi lm, I Am Kirsty, which details
the experiences of a single mother who
is forced to consider sex work when
she fi nds herself struggling fi nan-
cially. The hour-long fi lm is part of a
new series created by the Bafta-win-
ning director Dominic Savage.
Morton said: ”When Dominic met
me to discuss working together,
he said, ‘Is there anything you’re
interested in?’ I pitched this idea to
him, because it’s something I had been
through as a kid. It’s commonplace and
it’s happening more and more.”
Refl ecting on her childhood, she
said: “The poverty I suff ered as a kid
growing up ... Unemployment was
very high so there was lots of sex work
happening in communities then. It
was about basic things, people sell-
ing their body to put food on the table,
as opposed to supporting a drug habit.”
Morton said she discussed the plot
with a friend, who divulged that she
had experienced something similar.
Other conversations with charities and
women’s groups made it clear to Mor-
ton how common it was for women to
be forced into sex work.
“Students are having to do it to keep
a roof over their heads. The system iscrumbling and not fi t for purpose,” she
said. “When I look at the decimation of
Sure Start centres , the shift in the ben-
efi t system to universal credit , it’s all
connected ... The fact this is happen-
ing gets me emotional. ”
Morton also criticised Boris John-
son’s comments about the child abuse
inquiry. In March, Johnson claimed
police funding was being “spaff ed up
the wall” investigating historical alle-
gations of child sex abuse.
Morton said: “What breaks my heart
regarding that, having been a survivor
of child abuse, in order to heal and fi x
it you have to go back to the root of the
problem, like cancer, and cut it out. For
me, I don’t have anger and blame any
more, but I want it to be fi xed ... and
we need to communicate about it and
say, ‘This should never happen again.’”Researchers urge GPs to wake up to
the benefi ts of CBT for insomniacs
‘When I look at
the decimation of
SureStart centres,
the shift in benefi ts to
universal credit ... it’s
all connected’Samantha Morton
Actor4-
The number of sessions of CBT
that seem to be needed to achieve
a lasting improvement in sleep10-15%
The proportion of adults aff ected by
chronic insomnia, which is linked to
health problems such as depressionРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS