Insomnia is a terrible thing. Extremely frustrating, exceptionally boring and utterly soul destroying. If you’re anything like me, it always throws up the same three possibilities.
A little walk around the house. You read somewhere this will make you sleepy again, until you realise your mind is alert but your body is like a dead weight and couldn’t carry you to the kitchen if there was a freshly baked batch of chocolate muffins screaming to be scoffed.
Finishing that chapter you started at bedtime but then realising that not only will you disturb the person lying next to you (who is currently in the midst of an enviably deep slumber by the way) but your arms have never felt so powerless since that taster session at the gym. Unless the book is going to hover in mid air, there’s no chance.
So that just leaves option three, lying in bed and staring into the darkness for what seems like an eternity…
Maybe the next time this happens you should take a leaf out of your ancestors’ book and make the most of it. Get up for a meal, a dance or even a chat with your neighbours if you so desire. Sounds a bit crazy? Well that’s not the norm in my street let me tell you but apparently it was how they rolled right up until the late 1800s when the lightbulb was invented.
Historian Roger Ekirch claims that centuries ago, two short sleeps, rather than one long one, was the normal way to rest.
In his book, At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past, he describes a first sleep which began about two hours after dusk, followed by a waking period of two or three hours and then a second sleep until morning. It has also been suggested that between sleeps people were forced into rest and relaxation thereby regulating their stress naturally.
So let me get this straight, the must-have eight-hour sleep is a myth; insomnia is less of a disorder than a simple nod to the past and lying awake in the middle of the night could actually be doing us some good!
Imagine it? All the extra ‘stuff’ you could accomplish during those sleepless hours? That pesky tax return, your well overdue Open University essay, or what about the scarf you’ve always promised to knit, but never have. Call it a little bonus.
So the next time you hear yourself lament “There are just not enough hours in the day” remind yourself that actually, there just might be…
Give your children the best chance of a good night’s sleep with a gorgeous bed by Little Lucy Willow.