Yes, you can get a HOLLYWOOD hunk in your bedroom
It’s easy, thanks to the latest trend for celebrity sleep stories. But who’ll give you the sweetest dreams?
VIVID nightmares and crippling insomnia are rife as we battle through our third national lockdown. Doctors report a surge in patients struggling to get a good night’s rest and even people like me, who usually sleep like a baby, are having problems.
My Fitbit tells me that I now average a pitiful four hours a night, half of what I normally have.
The best part of a year with little social interaction has also left me feeling uncharacteristically anxious and jittery during the day.
If only I had a big, hunky man to read to me in soothing tones, or maybe guide me through some mindful meditation. And what if that man just so happened to be a megastar with the body of a Greek god?
Apps promoting mindful meditation and relaxation are more popular than ever, and some have cleverly recruited celebrities to help us switch off, calm down and nod off.
From chilling out with Hollywood heartthrob Chris Hemsworth to enjoying a bedtime story with Harry Styles, here’s what happened when I invited some of the biggest male stars into my bedroom . . .
SOOTHED TO SLEEP BY A SUPERHERO
Centr by Chris Hemsworth, one month free then £22.99 per month or £93.99 for a year, centr.com Imagine waking up to an email from Chris Hemsworth in your inbox telling you that the pair of you are going on a journey together. That’s what happens when you sign up to Centr, the lifestyle app he launched a year ago.
As well as workouts and diet advice, there are also meditations and stories led by the actor most famous for playing Thor in the Marvel franchise movies.
His eight-minute guided meditation on kindness is intended for children but my need is greater and, besides, they should be focusing on their schooling.
In his low, Aussie drawl, Chris tells me to relax from my little toes all the way to the top of my head. I must then feel the breath go into my body ‘so your tummy blows up like a balloon’. After months of overindulging, my tummy is permanently like a balloon.
Chris tells me to think of something that makes me happy and reveals he is thinking about surfing. Suddenly, I am also thinking about Chris surfing and, yes, that’s making me happy, too.
He wants me to imagine the biggest, warmest hug. He doesn’t say to imagine that he’s the one giving it, that’s just me using my imagination.
‘May I be happy. May I be safe. May I be strong and healthy,’ I chant as instructed.
‘Do you think you could send those happy feelings to everyone in your town? Or even the whole world? I think you can,’ he says. VERDICT: It’s impossible not to picture Chris dressed as Thor while doing his meditations. I should be visualising forests and beaches, but all I can do is picture him in his armour, brandishing that huge hammer.
He does have a relaxing voice and doesn’t take himself too seriously. In truth, I felt more hot and bothered than calm and relaxed.
3/5
A SPECIAL BRAND OF PSYCHOBABBLE
Once a womanising comedian, Russell Brand has now reinvented himself as something of a new Age guru. His YouTube channel has 2.8 million subscribers and it’s here that I follow his 15-minute guided meditation for anxiety. Dressed in an extremely low-cut T-shirt that shows his hairy chest and a string of beads, he tells me to relax and ‘don’t worry if you’ve got too much phlegm in your mouth’. I’m to breathe through my nose and sit up straight. He says that in meditation we don’t consider thoughts to be good or bad but must remind ourselves that we are more than a vessel for thought. He tells me to lengthen my exhalation and see if answers come to mind about why I’m anxious. ‘Feel the entirety of your body, inner and outer. Acknowledge that within the apparent solidity of the body is more space than matter and consider that beyond the apparent boundary of your physical form are expressions of your energy, pheromonally for example, and in terms of magnetic omission.’
I haven’t got a clue what he’s talking about, but maybe it doesn’t matter.
I am quite enjoying just relaxing and focusing on my breath for a few minutes, and mixed in with the psychobabble is sound and reassuring advice.
‘All anxiety and fear is temporary,’ says Russell. ‘You can live free from fear and deserve to.’ Amen. VERDICT: He may look like he’s entering a Jesus lookalike competition and a thick essex accent isn’t one you’ll typically find in meditations but it’s short, thought-provoking and I did feel more chilled.
THE MASTER OF MELLOW Honor Yourself by Diddy, free, audible.co.uk
THE Amazon owned a pp features a host of well- known names reading classic books. I want to relax and switch off, not focus on a story, so I decide to go with a meditation led by the singer formerly known as Puff Daddy. It’s 25 minutes long and Diddy says he is going to help me ‘slow down and drift off into the peaceful restorative sleep that you deserve’.
Wearing my new M&S pyjamas, I settle down for the night. Diddy tells me to picture myself in a state of deep sleep and then give myself ‘ permission’ to sleep. Permission granted.
He tells me to stretch out under the covers and then adds ‘that’s cool’. And Diddy is cool. no woowoo language from him, just straight talking.
‘I want to let you know there’s gonna be a change of pace but we’re gonna embrace it,’ he says.
When I breathe he wants me to inhale positivity and exhale negative energy and stress.
‘Honouring sleep is one of the most important ways we can honour ourselves. It will fill your hustle, your internal drive.’
He wants me to understand that my bed is my sanctuary and I need to give gratitude for it. I must say: ‘How lucky am I to have a bed that feels this good.’ My bed is 15 years old and urgently needs an upgrade but I go with it.
‘I deserve this time to rest’ must be my mantra as I picture the faces of my friends, loved ones and supporters. ‘You deserve some good vibes, you’re too hard on yourself.’ You’re right Diddy, I am.
‘Your body is heavy, at one with your bed. now it’s like a cloud and you’re drifting towards sleep,’ is how he ends the surprisingly calming meditation. VERDICT: Who’d have thought Diddy would be such a wise owl? His velvety voice is soothing and I did sleep well. I’m not sure if my hustle and internal drive are filled, but he is the master of mellow.
4/5
STORYTIME WITH STYLES
Dream With Me by Harry Styles, free seven-day trial, then £28.99 a year, calm.com LAUNCHED in 2012, Calm is the no 1 app for sleep, relaxation and meditation. We all know that Harry has an appreciation for the older woman, so why not get him to virtually tuck me in with a soothing story?
It is 40 minutes long and read to the accompaniment of sweeping orchestral music.
‘A sleep story, just for you. Thank you for choosing me to help you,’ says Harry slowly and softly. ‘Tonight we are going to think about anything you like . . . We are heading somewhere special.’
It soon becomes clear that it’s just a collection of awful poetry, like the sort I would have written when I was 12.
‘ Travel to moonlit valleys blanketed with heather, the kind of landscape you and I could dream about for ever.’
Then: ‘ Gentle scent of cedar wood is floating on the breeze, a gift from Mother nature and her nearby cedar trees.’
But the rhyming really peaks when Harry says: ‘We’re marvelling at infinity so allow yourself to wander to a peaceful new vicinity.’ By this stage, I am cackling like an old witch instead of drifting off to sleep.
One minute we’re on a beach, the next we’re in a forest, then a log cabin, followed by a meadow. never mind relaxing, I feel shattered and — I hate to say it, Harry — underwhelmed.
I never thought I’d be snuggled up in a mountain hideaway with Harry Styles . . . and bored. VERDICT: The app is slick and easy to use with hundreds of stories and meditations, it’s just a shame that Harry wasn’t as much fun to sleep with as I’d hoped. 1/5
TUNES TO TUNE OUT TO
Focus Like A Legend by John Legend, Headspace app, £9.99 a month, headspace.com LAUNCHED in 2012, Headspace is the brainchild of British businessman Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk. Singer John Legend has been appointed the meditation app’s chief music officer. He has curated a playlist to help people focus. It’s 60 minutes of music that John says will help me ‘get in the zone and stay there’.
There’s only one teeny problem: it’s jazz. Call me a philistine but the tracks all sound the same to me. However, I see that it could be relaxing to listen to some gentle tunes.
There are 12 tracks in total, all instrumental from artists including Sam Rivers, Wendell Harrison and Bob Moses — none of whom I’d heard of.
The hour passes pleasantly enough but I’m afraid I’m still not a convert to the delights of jazz. VERDICT: One of the cheaper apps, it’s good value for money. I can’t say John Legend’s playlist helped me focus but I did enjoy the short meditation recordings. 2/5
Afriend of mine is a cleaner at the hospital where i work. He has one of the most physically demanding jobs in the nHS: keeping the wards scrubbed and free from lurking bugs is a never-ending task and, frequently, a thankless one. i have never heard him complain. But fear of Covid-19, he told me, has been keeping him awake at night. ‘i have been living in terror,’ he admitted. He lives with his wife, their two small children and his parents in a small flat. for the past year, he has been so afraid of bringing the virus home from work with him that at the end of every shift he undresses on his doorstep.
Then he goes indoors, puts his clothes into the washing machine and takes a shower.
‘The vaccine changed my life more than you can imagine,’ he told me. ‘for a year, i have been petrified. The idea of passing Covid to my parents is unbearable — i could never forgive myself. But i love my job, and know what i do is important. Thank god for the vaccine!’
My friend and his parents are immigrants from Africa. There’s a popular misconception that most black and minority ethnic (BAMe) workers in the nHS don’t want to take up the vaccine, and that simply isn’t true. Most are enthusiastic about it.
But, as the Mail revealed last week, there is a substantial minority of workers across the nHS who are ‘vaccine-hesitant’. About 10 per cent of workers, in hospitals and care homes, are reluctant to get their jabs.
That is about 130,000 nHS workers who think they can do their job without having the vaccine. We have to make it clear that this is not the case.
To put it as bluntly as i can: actively failing to keep patients as safe as possible is gross misconduct. it cannot be tolerated.
The Government’s Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty is right to say nHS staff have a duty to be vaccinated unless they have a valid clinical reason not to do so. And it is right for the Cabinet to be considering legal changes to enforce this.
i don’t believe there are any legitimate moral reasons why it should not be a condition of employment to have the vaccine. Get the jab or lose your job.
i do not say this to impose my rules on other people. i’m a libertarian at heart and i don’t like telling people what to do.
As a doctor, my role is usually advisory. i tell patients: ‘don’t smoke. Keep your alcohol consumption within safe limits.’ But these are recommendations. if you want to smoke three packets a day, it’s your funeral. You have the right to choose.
But if you refuse to have a vaccine, and risk taking coronavirus into a hospital or care home, that’s different. Patients don’t have a say on whether their carers are vaccinated, but they have a right to be kept as safe as possible.
That applies to staff too. if 10 per cent of the team decide they don’t want to play by the rules, that affects the other 90 per cent. i don’t see why some staff should fill in for colleagues who can’t carry out duties because they are ‘vaccine hesitant’.
Any reluctance among nHS staff to have the jab surprises me. i don’t think i’ve spoken to one doctor or nurse who has reservations. But i am aware of an age divide: people who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s, and who remember the illness inflicted by polio and measles, tend to be strongly in favour of jabs.
Vaccine-hesitancy is a luxury of the younger generations who never saw the misery those diseases spread, and who are the least likely to be seriously affected by Covid- 19. it is the young, too, who are most susceptible to fake news on social media. full data about which nHS staff are declining the vaccine hasn’t been published, but i suspect it will be younger people without a science background. To combat this, the Government must issue clear messages about how safe and effective the vaccines are. This is key among communities that have reason to mistrust authority figures.
it’s crucial to get the message across, not least because so many of the victims in the first wave were front-line nHS workers from ethnic communities.
But that doesn’t mean we should make exceptions based on ethnicity. The vaccine has to be a requirement for working in healthcare — just like PPe.
Why should this be controversial? if you want to drive a lorry for a living, you need an HGV licence — no exceptions. And, if you want to be a front-line medical worker, you have to produce documents to show immunity EVen against TB and measles.
for medical training it’s a basic condition. Before they can start, college students need to produce a certificate of vaccination against hepatitis B. Without it, they won’t be admitted.
i almost fell foul of that regulation. A few weeks before i was due to enrol, i was phoning GPs, trying to get the jab. And the TB requirement has been the bane of my professional life, as i have genetic immunity. i was born with TB protection, so never had the vaccine — something i’ve had to explain to employers.
for any doctor, these regulations are second nature. it is a basic condition of employment to have the appropriate vaccines — and to suggest this is an infringement of anyone’s human rights is ridiculous.
THERE has been discussion around the loneliness older people have experienced in lockdown. But I’ve noticed in my clinic those who appear to be struggling most are men in their 30s and 40s. Middle-aged men often rely on work for a social life. Many have told me they feel lost and alone.