Outsmart your brain for that elusive deep sleep
Like many New Zealanders I have trouble sleeping. Which would be bearable if not for the late night paranoias. Little issues we don’t care about during the day become terrifying at 2.30am.
Taxes, mortality, nuclear war, the deterioration of Western democracy, the rapid automation of the workforce, whether or not Star Wars: The Last Jedi will be as good as The
Force Awakens and Rogue One. Our brains turn on us in the quiet.
That’s why non-sleepers are always looking for answers. Something that doesn’t involve pills and their unsatisfying metallic zombie-like sleep.
I’ve put forward a number of insomnia solutions in this column over the years. Theories that were rightly labelled half-baked and scientifically baseless. Someone called my last idea idiotic. Well, today I have another one.
But first a recap. Most recently I proposed the “sitting down and weeing like a girl in the dark” theory.
This was based around a belief that if you blast yourself with the bright lights of phones, laptops and bathrooms at night, you will fully wake up. The light takes you further from sleep. So do whatever you can to stay in the dark. Even if that means feeling your way to the bathroom and plonking yourself down to do your ablutions. I’ve talked to literally dozens of good honest Kiwis who weren’t helped by this theory.
In another column I argued insomniacs should lie to themselves. No matter how few winks you get tell yourself that you had a great sleep. Yell at your partner 10 times each morning “God that was a good sleep!”
Even if you’ve only managed 5 minutes try to convince yourself you are refreshed.
This method also received horrible reviews from readers who tried it.
I think the problem with both