Josie Gibson chatted on This Morning today about her sleep paralysis, which she says affects her everyday life, ahead of a sleep and dreams segment on the ITV lunchtime show

Josie Gibson has opened up about her debilitating health condition during a chat on This Morning.

The ITV star was hosting today’s show alongside Craig Doyle, where they were chatting about an upcoming segment. Encouraging viewers to get involved and share their recent dreams, she revealed she suffers with sleep paralysis.

Speaking on This Morning, she said: “I do get really weird dreams. I get sleep paralysis which is even weirder. If anybody knows about sleep paralysis, you cannot move. You’re awake but you’re still asleep. You think you’re awake but you cannot move.”

It’s not the first time Josie has opened up about her sleep paralysis. During a previous segment with Dr Sara Kayat, who was giving her top tips about sleep to This Morning viewers, Josie explained: “I’m so glad you’re here. I’ve literally not been sleeping a wink. The other day, I probably had about three hours sleep a night in a four days, and I was shaking. I was actually shaking by the fourth day, I felt like I wasn’t really here. So I need all the tips that I can get.”

Josie chatted to Craig about sleep paralysis ( 
Image:
iTV)

Craig added: “I’d bite the hand off you for three hours sleep a night. Honestly, yeah! It’s bad at the moment, isn’t it, for a lot of people,” as Dr Sara chimed in: “So it is so important we get on top of this, absolutely.

“I’m so sorry to hear both of you are struggling so much. Ideally, you want to be sleeping anywhere between seven or eight hours a night on average. People that get significantly less than that are at increased risk of health conditions, strokes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, depression, even early death. It is really important that we regularly get better sleep.”

She added: “Lack of sleep can have a number of different underlying issues. It could be something physical like sleep apnea where their tongue is going down the back of their throat and causing them to block up, it could be things like too much caffeine, lifestyle things, exercising too close to bedtime so endorphin levels are going up.

“It could be depression, we know that’s a large cause for many people to suffer with poor sleep and early wakenings. For a lot of people it could just be that they’re having to get up frequently to go to pass urine.”

Craig then shared his own experience, adding: “I know this cloud! Is this just a man thing, when you get to a certain age? You need to go to the loo at 3am. I don’t know if you know this, but as you come out of the bathroom there’s little demons that hide behind the door. They jump in your brain as you walk back out, ‘Did you pay that bill?’ ‘Is the dog gonna wake up early and annoy you? ‘It doesn’t have to be a big panic. That’s really common, anecdotally from friends of mine.”