Sleep is a natural response to neural stimuli. One has to will themselves to go to sleep to actually achieve sleep. It is through the act of lying down and closing one's eyes whilst relaxing that one achieves a sleep state which quickly goes...to the REM state. That stands for Rapid Eye Movement, REM. Nobody knows exactly why we need sleep but experiments have shown that without it things die in a matter of days. Sleep is more important than food in this regard, so it is curious that being gluttonous is acceptable in society yet being sleepy isn't. A way sleep scientists have learned more about sleep is by looking at animals that don't sleep. And that's where things really start to get wacky, as it turns out the only things that don't sleep are jellyfish. From the worms to the eagles, every other thing tends to sleep at some point or another. It is thought perhaps things with brains require sleep in order to give the brain a rest from it's conscious state, yet the brain waves are still active during sleep. Gamma, Theta and Beta wave patterns appear throughout the night, each of them giving more dreams of varying complexity. Dreams are caused by the Rapid Eye Movement (REM) of the sleeper beneath the eyelid, the patterns the dim light makes against the vein structure forces the sleeper to make sense of the abstract. Somewhere along the way this gets translated by the subconscious into a mental image. Scientists have experimented on people's eyes when they're asleep and discovered that if the eyeball is held in place the dream is just a still image. All night the sleeper will dream of one thing, say a vase of flowers, and like leaving a computer on without a screensaver the image is burned into the subconsciousness, in this instance everything in the waking state will somehow resemble a vase of flowers. People often need to sleep for several hours in order to feel totally energised. Bizarrely, tiredness causes errors in brain function more so than anything else.
So now we know what sleep is and why it's so important, it's curious why people struggle with getting to sleep. I went to visit a self diagnosed 'insomniac' in order to see what they were doing wrong. Abigail McGregor lives in Cheetham Hill in Manchester and works as a graphic designer. She's on a good income, lives a healthy lifestyle and says she is pretty much happy in her day to day life.
"It's the night time I don't like. I can't get to sleep for hours, I've tried going to bed early, going to bed late, nothing works." she says. I ask her further questions and find out she's tried every trick in the book.
"Have you tried all of the tricks at the same time?" I ask.
"I find one of the most relaxing ways is to drink a herbal tea and take the valerian route a few hours before bed, but I can't say I'm happy with the results." she says. I suggest that I spend the night in her flat, watching her sleep and then have a discussion in the morning. She agrees.
It is about 11:00 PM and Abigail turns off her television.
"About now I start to get ready for bed. Usually I go to my bedroom to check everythings in order." she says. I follow her down the corridor to her rest chamber. Though she's paying a five figure number for this exclusive apartment situated on the top floor of the state-of-the-art Green Quarter building, her bedroom is still quite small. She turns the light on and looks at the bed.
"Usually I get changed into my nightie and take out my contacts." she says, going over to a mirror.
"I'll step out of the room." I say, turning the light off as I go out. No wonder she can't get to sleep with all this electricity surging round. After roughly four and a half minutes she steps back out.
"Now what?"
"Well I go to the bathroom and y'know. Sort myself out."
"I'm sorry?"
"Have a wee, brush my teeth." she says. I nod and follow her to the bathroom. Although I don't watch her urinate I kneel by the closed door and listen intently, which is perceived as less transgressive in our society yet is, perceptually relative, the same. I open the door again and watch her brush her teeth.
"Hold on, hold on. Do it longer." I say after she gives up after half a minute. I keep encouraging her until we have reached the recommended time of two minutes.
"Oh, I forgot...I sometimes get a glass of water." she says. I roll my eyes and follow her back to the kitchen, where she takes a 475ml glass from the cupboard and fills it from the tap. I shake my head.
"You should only drink bottled water." I say. No wonder Abigail had problems sleeping, she was infusing her body with fluorides! Begrudgingly I follow her back to her room and watch pull the covers back and sit on her bed.
"Now what do you do?" I ask. She picks up her phone from the bedside table and waves it.
"Check my alarms on. Sometimes check twitter." she says. I restrain myself from pointing out the obvious. If you check twitter before bed you won't get to sleep because twitter is too exciting. I watch as she lies down, turns off her bedside lamp and begins to fall asleep.
"What are you doing?" I ask after a few minutes.
"Well, I can't get to sleep." she says.
"But what are you doing?"
"Lying down...I have my eyes shut."
"Try turning over." I suggest. She does so.
"The pillow is slightly cooler on this side."
"Is it agreeable?" I ask.
"It's alright." she says. I stand at the foot of her bed, examining posture and duvet thickness. Abigail has chosen a duvet with a tog rating of twelve, which seems reasonable to me. I estimate an increased temperature beneath the covers of roughly 10%, the standard difference required to keep the body warm over the course of the night. Yet before ten minutes have passed Abigail has already moved again, this time facing the opposite direction.
"Stop. Abigail. Abi, stop what you're doing." I say, sighing. She sits up. "You'll never get to sleep if you keep wriggling around like that." I say.
"But it's normal to move around in bed. I'm getting comfy."
"Is it normal? How do you know?"
"I've slept with people before." she says.
"Forget what you think you know. I've watched a lot of things go to sleep and none got their by moving their bodies except maybe fish and birds which only go to sleep with one brain hemisphere at a time. But mammals don't. Maybe giraffes sometimes. Pretend like I'm not here." I say.
The hours pass. By looking at her through an infrared camera I see she has finally got to sleep. I get down on all fours and begin to crawl up to her side of the bed, staring at her as she sleeps, memorizing every facial tick and change in breathing rhythm. Partway through the night she wakes up to go to the toilet and returns. I have now positioned myself at the bottom of the bed and watch her get in under the covers. I begin to crawl towards the pillow, using my phone as a torch.
"What are you doing?" she says.
"Gathering data. My phone is linked up to stream into The Cloud where it's compiled into a rich format .xlsb file." I say. She goes back to sleep and I work my way out of the bed and explore her flat, paying close attention to the contents of both the fridge and her bookshelf. I go back into her room and check through her phone, downloading some fun apps for her to try tomorrow. The sun begins to rise behind a ceiling of grey cloud, it is morning. Her alarm goes off and Abigail wakes, I go to the kitchen and pour us two glasses of orange juice.
"Sleep well?" I ask when she comes in.
"Yeah, not too bad actually all things considered. How about you?"
"I didn't sleep."
"Oh."
"Abigail, do you mind if I give you some feedback?"
"Sure." she says, drinking the juice.
"It's mostly good. You slept for exactly six hours and twenty three minutes, which isn't too bad. Could get a couple more in there, but not bad. I noticed you got back to sleep pretty quickly after visiting the bathroom, so, good job on that."
"Thank you." she says.
"Now for the bad news. Heh. You remember telling you about moving at the start of the night? Well...you moved again at about two in the morning. I was surprised to see you managed to do it in your sleep. If that was me, that would have woken me up, but somehow you managed. You also did it again about ten minutes before your alarm went off."
"Wow."
"I know. It's like you can't stop moving or something." I say, laughing mildly. "All joking aside, I think I found the reason for your insomnia and the cure is pretty simple."
"Really?" she says.
"I think tonight you should lie in the bath and cover yourself with sand. It might sound crazy, but trust me, I've seen these problems before and it works."
"So I should sleep in a bath full of sand?"
"Not full, that's too much. But enough so that it covers your body."
"Dry sand?"
"Dry to start off with, then you turn the hot water on."
"And this works?"
"It can take a few nights but about 75% of insomniacs benefit from this new form of sleeping." I say.
"Well...I'll give it a try. Thanks."
"Not a problem." I say. "Now if you don't mind me, I really could do with going to bed myself." We both laugh and I leave her apartment, pleased with my discoveries throughout the night.
So there you have it, a cure for insomnia. Comments or questions can go below or fire off an e-mail at http://www.hotmail.com/thepile@gmail.com and I'll get back to you ASAP. Also check out our youtube channel for the latest updates and our new segment 'Cooking With Daria'. Thanks for reading.
