Allan Hancock College is set to offer a four-week class on shut-eye health. The free class, titled “Sleep Wellness: Using Relaxation to Alleviate Sleep Disorders,” is designed especially for people suffering from sleep disorders, including veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder or other stress conditions.
Allan Hancock College Community Education is repeating the class three times throughout the semester. The first class will be held Jan. 20 to Feb. 10 on Tuesdays at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The Santa Maria campus class will be held Feb. 25 to March 18 on Wednesdays. The final installment will run April 14 to May 5 on Tuesdays in Lompoc. All of the classes will be held from 6 to 8 p.m.
Instructor Steve Dunlap said in a press release that he got the idea for teaching a class that focuses specifically on sleep difficulties because so many of his psychology students had sleep problems. Some were stressed-out college students, but quite a few were survivors of serious traumatic experiences. Several were veterans who had distressing experiences while deployed in Iraq, and were suffering from recurring nightmares and had difficulty falling asleep.
“It’s very important for trauma survivors to come to terms with their experiences, so they no longer have to run away from their own memories and mental images,” Dunlap said in the release.
“You can’t go back and erase those experiences from your life, but by deliberately working with relaxation techniques, it’s possible to not only learn to handle traumatic memories, but to attain a deeper and calmer state of inner peace than you’ve ever known before,” he said.
For more information or to register for a class, call 922-6966 or visit hancockcollege.edu.
This article appears in Jan 15-22, 2009.