Soldiers try to regain sleep patterns after return from combat zones

Soldiers try to regain sleep patterns after return from combat zones
By ADAM ASHTON
The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)
Published: February 1, 2013

TACOMA, Wash. — Army Capt. David Raines is home in Lacey, Wash., with his family, but he sleeps like he’s still deployed in Afghanistan. The 35-year-old officer manages only a few hours of rest each night.

That sleep pattern worked for him during the three years he spent in combat zones, where it paid to be alert around the clock.

It’s not as productive when he’s helping raise his three young children and juggling his stateside assignment supervising ill and injured soldiers at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

“I just want to sleep,” he said.

His experience struggling to find a healthy sleep routine at home is increasingly common for service members after a decade of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, said Lt. Col. Vincent Mysliwiec, Madigan Army Medical Center’s chief of sleep medicine.

Mysliwiec is the author of a study published today in the journal Sleep that breaks down ways that combat tours impact the rest service members are able to get when they return home.
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