The book suggests having a sleepover and inviting lots of friends round to help you stay awake. I used to love having sleepovers when I was a teenager but I don't remember ever staying awake the whole night.
You see, sleep is extremely important to me. I tend to be tucked up by 10.30pm these days and am truly murderous if I get less than 9 hours shuteye. I also need to start the day properly - e.g. with a cup of tea, gentle coaxing and someone else seeing to the alarm clock. So the idea of staying up all night is not appealing at all. There have been a couple of occasions recently where, due to factors outside my control, I have been wide eyed from dawn til dusk.
The first of these occasions was a particularly miserable night in hospital after major bowel surgery. Despite what I'd recently been through it wasn't pain that kept me awake that night but a combination of snoring by other patients, generally not being able to get comfortable due to the after effects of the op, the plastic mattress and pillow causing me to feel sweaty and grim and, probably, the cocktail of drugs I had consumed. I slept for precisely 15 minutes that night. I asked for sleeping pills the following night. They were good.
The second time I was denied my glorious zzzzzzz's was in Guatemala. Me and the husband visited this gorgeous country as part of a Central American tour and one of the top attractions is Tikal, the vast Mayan temple complex. We had been told that the sunrise tour is the best way to see the ruins so we decided to camp on site the night before. We had bought hammocks in Nicaragua and were keen to get some use out of them so slung them from the frameworks on the 'campsite' next to the site.
It gets dark quite early there and, being in the middle of nowhere, the electricity went off at 9pm, so we turned in quite early. Things started well and went downhill. The husband discovered he was slightly too long for his hammock. It was colder in the jungle than we had anticipated. And a lot scarier. We knew there were jaguars in and around Tikal. We didn't know if it was them that we could hear snuffling around beneath our, ever so slightly vulnerable, derrieres. We were paranoid about mosquitoes being on the wrong side of our mosquito nets. And so on. Every now and again one of us would hear a creature that was too close for comfort and we'd whisper 'Are you awake?' to the other. Invariably the answer would be a tremulous 'Yes...you?' 'Yes...did you hear that?' 'Yeah,...what was it?...' 'I don't know....I can't sleep...' 'No, me neither' 'What time is it?' 'Erm...about 1.20am...' 'Oh, is that all?...' It was a really long night. So I can safely say I have stayed up all night, but I didn't enjoy it and I won't be doing it again. No thanks.
#21 Sleep All Day
Now, this sounds more like it! I don't find sleeping difficult at all. And I've certainly spent many days more asleep than awake when I've been recovering from an operation. The book actually asks you to literally sleep all day by simulating night time and doing as many soporific things as you can. This sounds a bit much, and is another reminder that I might actually be too old and boring for many of these things. I'm not sure my husband, or my boss, would be much impressed if I failed to achieve anything in a day, except sleep. However, I sleep as much as I can and squeeze every last drop out of the night. I have been woken on the train by perfect strangers when my stop is approaching. I even fell asleep at my desk, with my eyes open, last week.
People underestimate the importance of sleep. Too little and you can, literally, go crazy. People who work night shifts for large parts of their life actually have a shorter life expectancy. And it never fails to amaze me how infrequently people seek medical advice when they are having trouble sleeping - it's important people! So, I have given full consideration to both being awake and being asleep and my conclusion is this: they both have their place, but, baby, I'm a sleeper!!!! You?
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Referring back now to #20 Stay up all night - I can recall a sleep over up stairs at my parents where we finally fell asleep as the sun came up and morning tv came on the air with an episode of The Poddington Peas. I'm sure you were there! Kate Xx
ReplyDelete"About your blog on sleep, I find it very hard to sleep nowadays, (my age might have something to do with that! Shhh. I'm 81!) However, I read an article once that gave good advice. Something on the lines of ' Make sure you are as warm, and as comfortable as possible, then tell yourself that the body at rest does not need sleep. It is regaining energy by lying down, doing nothing, so give in to it, relax, think positively and don'y worry if you DO see the morning sun. Remember you are fortunate to have a bed and warmth, I could add, remeber the song, "It's another day in Paradse for you and me" Audrey C.
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