Ah, insomnia. Again.
You know what it's like. You sleep like a log for the first half of the night, because by the time you got to bed you were physically and mentally knackered. Especially if you've had a couple of pints of shandy or a glass or two of Liebfraumilch. Out like a light.
Until you get that rude awakening of an impossibly full bladder, or one of the cats deciding to sit on your head. Usually sometime between 3 and 4. Earlier if you're unlucky. No matter how groggy you are on the way back from the loo, the second you get back into bed, bang! you're wide awake and stressing about all the things you need to get done, but can't... because it's the middle of the bloody night.
And the longer you're awake stressing about what you can't do there and then, the more likely you're going to be too tired to get even half of it done during the day... because then you'll be walking around like a zombie because you only got a fraction of the sleep you needed.
That classic vicious circle.
But rational thought goes out the window at 4am. And you've tried all the things that other people say works for them. Counting sheep. Deep breathing exercises. Chill-out bleed'un panpipes.
Fed up of tossing and turning you eventually get up. Fix some camomile tea or something. Look for some boring TV that will hopefully zone you out enough that you'll at least nap on the sofa for a bit.
A few years back I discovered the ultimate boring TV. A programme that's on for about an hour and a half every night on ITV1 from around 3.30 until 5 am or thereabouts. Unwind with ITV is supposed to be boring. It's actually designed that way...
Gently rippling waves. People in the distance walking slowly across a park. Sailboats bobbing up and down. They basically set up a camera and let it record for a while. No change in viewpoint. No camera movement. Just some slow ambient music in the background.
Yes, Unwind with ITV is scientifically engineered to be repetitively dull. Hypnotically tedious. Seductively banal. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the very cat that woke me up an hour before will sit beside me and watch cars going over some suspension bridge in Wales until it falls asleep... whilst I'm sat there still wide awake. Oh the irony.
So next time you're roaming around the house in the middle of the night unable to do anything because the slightest little sound seems louder than banging a bass drum, why not give it a go. What have you got to lose... sleep?
