Prompts | Take It Easy

It’s been a few weeks since I last wrote something for one of the prompts John provides for the Writer’s Workshop, so I really thought it was about time I had another go. His prompts for this week can be seen in his post here. I’ve chosen to go with the one which suggests that we write about sleep.

For those who are new here and unaware of it, I started my blog in autumn 2012 to share my experiences of depression, in the hope that this would help others, and by some miracle it seemed to do that. One of the other issues with which I had been struggling during that spell of depression was poor sleep: I often woke in the night, even if that wasn’t caused by the aging male’s need to pee. I wrote about it in one of my early posts, which I have since reworked a couple of times, but as it is a long piece I thought I’d just give you some extracts today. And of course, being me, this wouldn’t be complete without a song, would it? That early post was the sixteenth I had written, and was published in January 2013: this one is #989 – there have been a few more since those early days, haven’t there!

In early 2012, when I was in the midst of a long spell off work with depression, I was referred to a specialist clinic for help with my sleep issues. I was tested for sleep apnoea, which was just a name to me, and when the consultant told me the results were negative I said I was almost disappointed – I’d been hoping they would find something wrong so that they could treat it. The look on his face was priceless, somewhere between ‘you have my sympathy’ and ‘you’re a complete imbecile’ and it was then he told me that sleep apnoea can be fatal, so it was just as well I didn’t have it! He also said there was no treatment for my issues so, basically, I was on my own. In my desperation I was ready to have a go at anything, and these were a few of the things I tried:

Sleeping on the settee – mine’s a two-seater, I was constantly moving around trying to get comfortable and keep everything on the settee. I didn’t sleep and I felt like I’d gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. Not recommended!

Sleeping on the floor – only for the hardy or the terminally stupid. Painful, didn’t work, and guys if you try it be careful to avoid squashing important bits. That doesn’t help you sleep – trust me, I know! Not recommended!

Infusions – I’ve never been much of a fan of the herbal/floral teas. As far as I’m concerned, to be called ‘tea’ it needs to contain ‘tea.’ Grass is for gardens, or for enlivening smoking. But someone recommended lemon and ginger and to my surprise I quite liked it. So I thought I’d try the special infusions to aid sleep. Verdict? Well, I’ve never drunk liquid compost, but I think I now have an idea of what it would taste like. And it didn’t seem to help me sleep any better either – probably because of the retching. Not recommended!

Herbal sleep tablets – following the ‘it’s good for you’ logic I thought I’d try these. Well, if they’re good enough for Cadfael, why not? They were quite large, it was impossible to swallow them without tongue contact and they tasted like…you guessed it, liquid compost in tablet form. No noticeable difference in sleep either, probably because of the bad taste lingering above toothpaste. Not recommended!

Hot chocolate – tastes much nicer than the shit-in-a-bag stuff. But no noticeable improvement in sleep. Recommended for enjoyment, but not for sleeping.

Keep the TV on with low or no sound – what was I thinking! I just ended up watching movies! Not recommended, well, for sleep anyway. I saw some good films though.

Sleeping with the lights on – also in the ‘what was I thinking’ category. No. Utterly pointless. Not recommended.

Keep the TV and the lights on – see the previous two. Not recommended.

Listen to music – also falls into the ‘enjoyable but didn’t help’ class. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried it with AC/DC? Fun, but not recommended.

Reading to make my brain tired – see watching TV, only in Kindle form. Not recommended.

Going on the computer to make my brain tired – see watching TV, reading etc. Not recommended.

Making the flat very warm, to induce drowsiness – more likely to help with weight loss from the sauna effect. No use whatsoever. Also detrimental to the gas and electricity bills. Not recommended.

Basically, after trying all of these and getting nowhere, I came to the conclusion that my motto should be….

‘I want to go to sleep, but my brain keeps talking to itself.’

Of course I also took the obvious steps of losing weight and taking more exercise, which were both helpful, and even though I’ve slipped a bit on both of those fronts I still sleep ok nowadays. So this little saga does have a kind of happy ending. If you suffer from sleep problems I sympathise, and I’d be interested to hear of anything you have tried that differs from the collection of failures I worked through – just in case I might ever need it.

If you’d like to see the original post from which I have extracted some of this, you’ll find it here. Who knows, it might help cure your insomnia – it’s a long one!

And as promised, I leave you with a song: