Delegate: The Sleep Behaviours Research Group at EMU
Delegate Short Bio: The Sleep Behaviours Research Group was established in 2020 by Assist. Prof. Gökçe Yılmaz Akdoğan at the Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta. The mission is to understand the development and predictors of sleep behaviours and sleep problems in infants, children, adolescents, and emerging adults; and establish culturally sensitive and effective intervention programs for Turkish-speaking populations. So far, up to 10 undergraduate students participated in data collection phases of studies, assisted seminars and workshops as part of the world sleep day activities, and four graduate students completed their masters thesis on various subjects such as preschool children’s sleep patterns and attention in relation their screen time; fathers’ involvement in infants’ sleep routines in the first year of life; preventive education programs for 2-3 month-old infants’ sleep; and self-management of insomnia programs’s feasibility and effects on emotional eating in university students.DAU-UDAG continues to contribute to the diversity in sleep research and raise sleep health awareness in the northern part of Cyprus and around the world with the help of social media.
Scope of Activity: Campaign of multiple activities
Activity: Assist. Prof. Gökçe Yılmaz Akdoğan, Bikem Kızılduman, MSc, and Clinical Psychologist Hasan Ergüler, PhD collaborated on two workshops with a similar format, targeting two distinct populations who all speak Turkish.
In both workshops, participants completed the Insomnia Severity Index to identify the level of their sleep disturbance. Following, in an interactive format, we went through the topics of:1) What is good quality sleep vs a problem sleep? 2) How does sleep affect our lives? a) when it’s good vs b) when it’s bad. 3) What causes sleep problems? vs what leads to a good quality sleep? 4) What can we do (as a mother of xx children OR as a university student) within our capacity, to sleep well so that we can live better? In this last section, we have provided information on sleep hygiene, setting up a bedtime routine (including a demonstration of how to use mindfulness techniques to remedy rumination in bed), and the principles of stimulus control. At the end of the workshop’s handouts, there was a behavioural contract to be filled out and a standard sleep diary to be filled out later if the participants were willing to apply what they had learned at the workshop. Feedback was received, and we provided participants with our contact information in case they would like to share their progress in optimising their sleep patterns. 6 mothers whose children’s ages ranged from 8 months to 25 years old attended the morning workshop, and 16 university students attended the evening session.
Location: Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, Northern Cyprus
Date of Activity: 13.03.2026
