AGAINST my better judgment, I'm inexorably drawn to those pages in newspapers and magazines devoted to health advice and medical matters.
This is not a good thing for anyone's peace of mind. All it does is scare the daylights out of hypochondriacs and foster doubt and anxiety in the hearts of perfectly rational people who have not very much wrong with them.
While scrupulously hedging their bets by the cautions use of phrases like, "X may exacerbate the condition" or "Y can alleviate symptoms of Z", such articles bring on a strong attack of suggestibility in their readers. How else can we account for the vast increase in sales of health supplements and self-medication with `natural' remedies, none of which we'd need if we ate sensibly, drank moderately and exercised regularly?
A recent spate of articles on sleep has me in a quandary. According to one, too little sleep can shorten your life; another asserts that too much sleep can have a similar effect.
What's one supposed to believe? My difficulty isn't `not sleeping' - it's nodding off at inappropriate times in inappropriate places - in cinemas, at concerts, in lecture theatres, buses or trains. Put me anywhere warm and relatively comfortable and I'll be out like a light in 10 minutes. It's absolutely necessary for me to sit at a table to read newspapers or write. I have more than once keeled sideways off this chair while writing the Irish News piece, but then I'm not only a night-bird, but a procrastinator – and it's 3:20 am.
Experts set great store by one's `quality' of sleep. For this they recommend pitch darkness, stone silence, a stable temperature of 19 degrees, good ventilation, a firm mattress, orthopaedically correct pillows, not too heavy covers, breatheable nightwear and a regular bedtime.
Of these requirements I can furnish but a few. I do not like the dark, nor silence. Illuminated by two bedside lamps, my radio burbles quietly all night and I dream the World Service, absorbing the news on the once-popular principle that you can learn a language in your sleep. I have a big sad sitting-up-in-bed-to-read cardigan and often drift over still wearing it, which will be very embarrassing should I die in the night.
My idea of an early night is 10:30 but by the time I take my face off, get my tablets organised, hang things up and decide what I'm wearing next day, I'm bouncy as a box of birds, so I may switch on the television at the bottom of the bed to watch Question Time or Nolan and shout at the screen. There my well be a little bowl of nibbles on the bedside table and a glass of wine, which, if I'm carefully propped against four pillows, I can comfortably balance on my chest. I shall not dwell on the consequences of ‘dropping off’ mid-programme. Suffice to say, there’s a lot of `Vanish' used in my machine's pre-wash cycle.
The late Loving Spouse and I were an uneasy alliance of lark and owl. He'd be crashing about from seven on a Saturday morning. I'd happily have slept till noon, but go up out of wifely duty. He was a great advocate of the post-lunch nap. After 15 minutes precisely, he'd awake refreshed and go back to work in the best of spirits. I tried it a couple of times, but had to be wakened, in the foulest of moods, to make dinner at six.
The drawback to this, my narcoleptic habit is, I rarely see more than three quarters of anything on television. The L.S, bless him, as we sat side by side on the sofa watching some convoluted thriller, frequently had to restore my mouth to the `closed' position, followed by a gentle jab to the ribs. It lent a whole new interpretation to the term `losing the plot'.
If, as Shakespeare put it, "sleep knits up the ravelled sleeve of care," my involuntary catnaps could supply Dunnes Stores with jumpers. To all the insomniacs out there, my commiserations. Do they still make Horlicks?
