Maree’s musings 

SLEEPING it OFF

  2021 is well under way, and I wonder how your New Year Resolutions are going? My only one is to not make any. It’s easy to keep and saves uncertainty about success, which plagues most of the more conventional ones. Generally they involve personal improvements. Lose weight, get fit etc., maybe ‘Be more organised’ Or perhaps ‘Get more sleep’? 

I discovered we spend about 112 hours per week awake and one-third of those working, which proves tiring. Work is not a subject I want to (ahem!) labour on about, but doing the maths, that’s about 56 hours in bed, possibly, asleep. Sleep is a fascinating subject, so was worth a column I surmised.

I must admit to being a tad anxious at times about drifting off. Those hours when you have no idea what’s going on and whether things will be different when you wake up are enough to keep anyone awake. Insisting you never snore? A quarter of us do it all the time and nearly half once in a while, when asleep, presumably; with the other/better half lying awake and threatening murder by an elbow to the ribs or a pillow smother. Once awake, the offender pleads innocence (no, I wasn’t!), or grumpily asks why they were woken up to be told you can’t sleep? This is not a problem when you sleep solo of course; although I do wonder on occasions when I stir of a morning to find my cat has removed his fine feline ailure from my embrace to the silence of the sofa.

Most of us assume we lie still of a night, but no. Those sleep scientist chaps cajole willing subjects into spending eight hours in what’s called a sleep lab being watched by CCTV cameras in the ceiling, and then playing it all back for you to view. That’s a bit like spending the best part of the day awake, but sort of not, don’t you think? Watching it would be either a real wake-up call, or alternatively send you straight to sleep. 

Apparently tossing and turning is the order of the night; but what fascinates me is sleeping positions. Here’s a list I made up. The Corpse: flat on your back with your arms folded across your chest. The Winter Whippet: I’m sure you get the picture. The Crucifix: arms flung out to the side; great on a balmy night, but can be dangerous for any sleeping partner. And The Skydiver: when you wake up in the middle of the night, totally spreadeagled and find you’ve left the electric blanket on blast setting. 

One good thing, though. At least when you’ve finally nodded off, your brain is still ticking over. There’s still some hard-working neurons scuttling around with their molecular dustbusters getting rid of those unwanted cells, and synapses of others joining the dots to find solutions to yesterday’s nagging problems.

So those nocturnal hours are not all wasted. Sweet dreams, everyone!