My friend has difficulty sleeping, but I can do it with my eyes closed…

It’s been Sleep Week here at Back in Action UK this week.  Our physios have long been telling me that sleep is necessary for physical as well as mental health.  I don’t disagree.  It’s just, as I sit here with my head banging from drinking too much red wine last night and hence not enough sleep, I realise, yet again, that my sleep behaviour is really not the one to follow.

I seem to have a complete inability to go to bed early.  I think I am doing all the right things: I have a cup of Red Bush Tea and watch the BBC News at Ten with view to being tucked up, lights out by 11pm.  By the time Asad Ahmad is on to tell me about the London news, I’m staring vacantly at the TV such that all it takes is Peter Cockroft with his weather to put me into a semi-comatosed state.  You’d think then that the passage to sleep from there at 10.40pm would be straight forward.  Oh no.  Guaranteed that as soon as Peter has wished us ‘good-night’, I turn from

Interesting read Alex?

‘vegetative’ to ‘all systems firing’ quicker than you can say ‘land-of nod’.  The laptop that’s been sitting on the sofa all night looking at me get’s fired up and before I know it, I’ve whipped up the financial forecasts for BIA UK for the coming year, or done that VAT return I’ve been hiding from for weeks.  Or I’ll start sorting out the kids’ pen drawer, clearing the fridge out, or if there really is nothing else to do, I’ll become gripped with some drivel on the TV. Last night it was ‘Boozed up Brits Abroad.’  It’s also quite possible that whilst watching the aforementioned drivel, I’ll have turned on the Ipad and started searching for ex-boyfriends circa 1988 – 1993 on Facebook or browsing for dining room chairs, even though I have a perfectly nice husband and 6 perfectly nice chairs already.

It’s no wonder then that when the alarm goes off at 6.30am, I’m not feeling the most refreshed. Or that I am the head-nodder on the 0836 from Mortlake (still recovering from the shame of the time I woke myself up with my snoring) or if I read a book during the day, no matter how exciting, I am asleep within 5 minutes (see picture for proof).  The simple answer is that I blame Peter Cockcroft.  I should turn him off, and go to bed before I am too tired.  But then those VAT returns would never get done……..