There’s something about the dark and lonely early hours that makes everyday problems seem insurmountable.
“Especially if I monitor the minutes and hours passing illuminated in my clock radio,” Maya says with a sigh. Then panicking about not being able to recharge before a busy day ahead becomes a powerful stay-awake-making stress in itself.
But the good news is it’s almost always possible to beat insomnia. Perhaps the best place to start is with improved “sleep hygiene.”
The theory is pretty straightforward: not taking cat naps; reducing caffeine and alcohol (especially after lunchtime) taking regular exercise (but not in the evening), and getting into a sleep routine, which means going to bed and getting up at the same time, even at weekends. A warm milky drink and soothing bath before hitting the sack are worth doing. And finally as Maya vouches, banishing clocks from sight and sound in the bedroom is essential.
But the secret weapon up Maya’s sleeve doesn’t immediately strike you as sleep inducing: needles.
“I’ve discovered acupuncture,” she tells me. “I try to have a session once a month and the difference is amazing. If I arrive really tired, I leave more energized. It might take another day or two to sleep well, but then I do.”
Penny, thirty-five, historically had a problem with her sleep hygiene. “I lived in noisy student digs for years,” she says. “And I also worked in a late bar, which meant I went to bed buzzing.”
After university, Penny took a job in sales and was frequently on the road. “It was lumpy Bed and Breakfast beds very often,” she says, “guaranteed to get me tossing and turning.”
But even when she packed her own soft mattress pad to plump out discomfort, stuck in earplugs, and shut out light from street lamps with an eye mask, Penny still wasn’t able to sleep.
“I caught every cold going and was so tired I couldn’t think straight,” she explains. “Often when I was driving, I’d have to pull over for twenty minutes or so.”
