Obvious

Well, who'd have thought that signing up for a sleep improvement programme could entirely ruin one's sleep pattern, damaged and fragile as it already was? But that is what happened. From Saturday night, all the way through until Thursday night, my sleep average was around 4.5 hours a night. Believe me when I tell you this is not enough for a day's work, and yet and yet somehow I do cope, I do see all my clients, and I do believe (and I don't think I'm deluded) the work is good enough. Then I come home and crash, in all senses of the word (well maybe not all senses, but more than one). It makes life a little limited, keeps the old flu cough alive and well, and there are moments and hours of great physical and mental misery, especially the hour in the car on the way home, especially the bits sitting at red lights.

Anyway, then on Friday night I slept about 6 hours. And last night about 8!! Praise be to the dozy little pyjama-clad god of sleep. I thought I'd lost the ability to have anything one could accurately call a night's sleep.

So yesterday I undertook (or underwent) Sleepio session 2. Nothing much to report really, it was a series of blinding glimpses of the obvious. However, let's not be too scathing, it is always good to be reminded about caffeine, exercise, relaxation and so forth, though I do agree with some of my fellow travellers on the Sleepio website message board, that being told to make your bedroom dark, quiet and comfortable seems a little unnecessary and just a tad patronising. Do those clever CBT doctors not realise they are addressing seasoned insomniacs here? Too hot, light or noisy a bedroom, or too lumpy a bed might possibly be a problem you'd have eradicated at some earlier stage of the game, when you first began to wonder if there was anything obvious you could do to improve your sleep.

A more interesting development is that I have sworn off alcohol for the duration, since not only did Sleepio point out, but I also know from experience that drinking it is not at all sleep-friendly less than four hours before bed. Might make you sleepy at first, but then body goes into withdrawal in middle of night, and zip zap you're awake. Or in my case you're just awake and hot and awake and hot (and that was one glass of red wine last Saturday night). If I miss it too much I'll take up drinking at lunchtime. Seriously though, I hadn't had more than three glasses of wine since I got flu at the beginning of February, so I'm more or less weaned anyway, and have regularly stopped drinking for spells throughout my life. I like it, it just takes a while to get round to it. As so often in my life, on important matters - my body has spoken.

Another week on the sleep diary, and in theory addressing my 'negative thoughts' with something called a 'thought checker', which goes something like this:

1.My thought

2.This makes me feel...

3. A more accurate version

4. This makes me feel...

I will once again attempt to lay off the scathing tone, because there are moments when this sort of thing has its uses, when the thought is for example 'oh god, I can't sleep, and I will be such a wreck tomorrow and everything is going to hell in a handcart'. Which clearly makes me feel helpless, miserable, angry and anxious. I won't bore you with parts 3 and 4, but you know sometimes a blinding glimpse of the obvious is just what we need if we're not too darn sophisticated to take it in.