Sleep Injury Prevention: Stop Nighttime Harm Before It Starts
When you're asleep, your body isn't just resting—it's vulnerable. Sleep injury prevention, the practice of reducing harm during sleep through awareness, environment changes, and medical management. Also known as nighttime safety, it's not about sleeping better—it's about surviving the night without a fall, burn, overdose, or worse. Most people think sleep is passive, but it's full of hidden risks. A dizzy spell from a medication, a confused wanderer with dementia, a child choking on a pill left within reach—these aren't rare. They happen every day, often because no one connected the dots between sleep and safety.
Medications play a big role. Drugs like lithium, a mood stabilizer used for bipolar disorder that can cause dizziness and tremors, or propranolol, a beta blocker that lowers blood pressure and can lead to fainting, increase fall risk when taken at night. Even common OTC sleep aids or antihistamines can leave you groggy, unsteady, and unaware of your surroundings. Oral thrush, a fungal infection caused by inhaled steroids that can make swallowing painful, might not seem related—but if you’re too sore to drink water or take your meds properly, you’re more likely to miss doses or take them wrong, which can spiral into something dangerous. And if you’re managing sleep disorders, like insomnia, sleep apnea, or REM behavior disorder, you’re not just tired—you’re at higher risk for nighttime accidents.
It’s not just drugs. The environment matters too. Loose rugs, poor lighting, cluttered floors, or a bed that’s too high can turn a simple roll over into a broken hip. Kids and older adults are especially at risk. A child might grab a pill bottle left on the nightstand. An elderly person might get up to use the bathroom and not realize how weak they are. Even something as simple as a humidifier left too close to the bed can cause burns or slips. Sleep injury prevention means looking at your bedroom like a safety inspector would—no guesswork, no "it’s probably fine."
