Oh, but to slip into sleep as a contented hound must do

As Shakespeare wrote in his play, As you would rather like it, back in 1624.

I think we all must suffer the annoyances of insomnia from time to time, or regularly or even almost constantly - if you happen to be like my dear mother. I could always tell from my first glimpse of her on a morning if the day was likely to proceed with her being wracked with grumpiness. She coped ok most of the time and would brighten considerably after a first creosote mug of tea but it was always a problem wish I wish she could have solved.

Currently, Mark and I have periods of insomnia which don't match each others at all. He will start sleeping as his head nears the pillow whereas I usually ruminate on some event of the day for a while or for hours if I don't manage to divert the thoughts with attention to my breathing. This often works but if a persistant niggling thought suddenly developed into something worthy of worry, that's it for a calm and restful night's sleep. Whereas, Mark often wakes at about four thirty - five/five thirty has somehow become alright - reads, makes bread (hurrah!) and does his worrying then.

Going somewhere else always breaks these sleep, or rather, non-sleep patterns, the sea being the best, but not overly practical, unless we move to the coast, but then we'd probably get acclimatised and all the patterns would reform and going away to somewhere else like a forest cabin would become the getaway, and so on.

I've tried natural, herb based remedies, mild-ish sleep, non-prescription pills, and full on sledge hammer tablets, non of which worked and the latter two gave me stomach upsets and heart palpitations. So, what does work - for me? Not eating too late in the evening, no caffeine-y stuff after about four, no looking at emails after late afternoon - in case of something angst inducing - and on a positive note, audible meditation and audio stories. Meditation does certainly work, especially the music-less ones that concentrate on slowing the breath and the nervous system generally, but to get into the right state takes some time and I prefer to use meditation now during the day at some point. The audio book is now my go-to sleep aid which works almost without fail.

I did have a few months of listening to Will Self's Book of Dave as I found his voice lulling, even though parts of the story are certainly nightmare inducing, but then the kind person who put it up on Youtube took it down again - possibly spooked by this one listener prodding the story into life several evenings a week.

So, the current favourite - The Secret Garden, read by Steven Garnet (Red Fox Voice). I hope he wouldn't mind me advertising this as a sleep aid but it totally works - for me. His reading is remarkable, the accents spot on, the pacing and tone, truly excellent. I know the story well from my childhood so enjoy all the characters, visual impressions of the garden, house and windswept moorland. That's the thing. It has to be familiar to assist sleep, the story known well so that the words act as a warm cocoon. A new story would be too engaging to encourage sleep and the subject, obviously, is important. American psycho or  The Road, probably wouldn't work . . .

 

Unknown stuff

While sitting in a café recently, I took out my laptop to do a bit of editing and noticed they advertised Wi-Fi free - being in French this actually means, free Wi-Fi, or weefee, with the accent. I thought I might as well check an email or two and logged on.
The list of surrounding weefees was extraordinary - about thirty different 'types' from Orange to Chez Felix or wherever it was that I was sitting. How can you escape all this, if you want to? Difficult. There is a man who lives in a village near us who has apparently spent thousands on 'Bacofoiling' his entire house and himself such is his angst, or perhaps very real fear/reactions to this peculiar air-born, invisible . . . thing.

                                        


Being a bit of a luddite myself I can understand the worry over something that has crept into our world insidiously and taken over our waking, and sleeping hours.
I still regard Microwaves with a certain amount of suspicion, and all phones with what I regard as a healthy disregard. Phone = useful device with which to contact or be contacted by people in a situation where information needs to be relayed: 'help, I have driven into a ditch,'  'can you remember to get more cat food,' and more importantly things such as: 'my neighbour's house appears to be on fire.' Most other yakking, checking how many Likes one has or playing Discontented Slugs, or other latest App drivel seems, to me anyway, a tad alien. Hm!
Anyway. WiFi. Mark, being an occasional insomniac like myself, read a report somewhere recently that suggested turning off the device at night was likely to promote better sleep - possibly common sense, but good to be reminded of such things, just as people need to be reminded that perhaps sleeping with their phones under their pillows might not be a good plan (arg! Why would you do that?)
So we did, turn it off, and . . . yes it could be total placebo BUT, I do sleep better - deeper, longer and with even more bizarre dreams than usual (a good thing, I think). I used to wake up at the slightest sound: a dog's collar jingling downstairs, a cat prowling over gravel outside, now - nothing.
It was as if I had been on standby not really OFF; ready to receive information streaming from our small white box downstairs: celebrity hair, Donald Trump's latest verbal gifts to the world, recipes, junk emails from Uncle Amazon; people inviting you to invest in their money-laundering ideas, tweets, reminders, Waitrose wine (how the F did I get onto their list?) gadgets, maps, reports . . . and so on.
The brain needs sleep: big, wide, profound sleep to repair itself and the body, and anything that can be done to assist this is of huge value - just a tiny switch- click-off; maybe it doesn't have any real effect but if one's mind can perceive it as an aid to total night time obliteration - great!
I read this morning about a Dutch study on growing cress placed next to wireless routers. One set of plants in a room with no routers, and another placed between two routers - result, the cress close to the radiation didn't grow . . . mm.
Anyway, just for saving energy alone, everything should be turned off that is normally on standby, and all chargers removed from plugs even when connected to devices; it all adds up to higher bills, general electricity waste and more stuff bombarding our already sore brains.
Goodbye, off to put this onto shutdown, not sleep.