Is it just me? I’ve started playing mindfulness recordings that promise to ease me into sleep.
But sometimes they have the reverse effect because it’s very hard to sink into sleep when you’re roaring with laughter.
EXHIBIT ONE: The soothing voice tells me to blow air into my legs, then let them float off into space. Then I’m told to do likewise to my arms, and I realise then I can’t even wave them goodbye. Next my head. Fill it with air and let it drift off like a hot-air balloon. “Now relax your whole body.” At this point, it was bleedingly obvious to me I didn’t have a lot of body left to relax.
EXHIBIT TWO: “Don’t listen to this sleep mindfulness session if you are driving a car.” That really cracked me up.
Sleep used to be as easy as riding a bike.
I even remember a time when you didn’t even need an app to tell you that you hadn’t slept well.
You just rubbed your eyes and thought: “What a lousy sleep that was!”
To be fair, you had probably woken up in the waiting room of a train station or on a mate’s sofa because you had drunk too much the night before to drive home.
Thankfully, I have banished overnight stays in uncomfortable positions.
But I haven’t quite shrugged the need for sleep.
And at 65, it’s becoming harder to come by too.
How’s that work?
In my 20s, I’d stay up drinking coffee till 3am, sleep until nearly noon and STILL get eight hours of interrupted sleep.
Now I go to bed uncaffeinated at 9pm, get up at 6am/7am/8am and rarely get anywhere near eight hours.
Once in a while I come close. But my sleep app records I actually woke up five times so the eight hours of slumber occurred over the space of 11 hours.
I’m impressed the app can tell me how long I spent in REM, deep sleep, light sleep and times awake.
I’d be more impressed though if it could record the dreams I actually had.
Playback, rewind, fast forward. In full techno colour and stereo sound.
Is that what a pipe-dream is?
JOHN MARTIN 
Your report of the ‘mindfulness’ (as in ‘don’t mind the bollocks on this …’) tape had me in stitches too. I find anything designed to relax me has the absolute opposite effect – whale song is ok for whales but annoys the hell out of me. And don’t get me started on counting sheep – when I lived on a farm, all the sheep would rush together – no orderly jumping over a fence one at a time! Do hope you can get some sleep somehow though. I have enjoyed your emails (‘Failing the smell test’, ‘pig ran away with the spoon’) but this was the best. On a more serious note, Amazon.co.uk have banned me from posting book reviews, because they claim I have repeatedly violated their guidelines and ignored warnings from them. They cannot (or will not) specify which rules (just read our guidelines!) have been broken, nor by which reviews. What is even more upsetting is that they have removed ALL of my (previously accepted) reviews – over 500 from over 9 years – including all the reviews I wrote for your books. I am trying to sort this out, but they are not being helpful at all – and very difficult to get replies from. I’ll let you know if the situation improves. All the best (and lots of good sleep) Rosemary Standeven
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