How did you sleep last night? If your answer is 'not enough', you are certainly not alone! According to a 2022 study by insurer Direct Line, 71% of Brits don't get the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep per night, with an alarming 14% (7.5 million people) getting less than 5 hours, levels considered "dangerously low".
I've been tracking my sleep for a while, and my average per night comes in at just shy of six hours. I honestly don't know how folk have time to fit in much more shuteye, given all the other demands of daily life, but I sometimes dream of getting that elusive seventh hour of slumber. I've been doing early morning starts since the start of 2017, and you'd think I would be used to the shrillness of my alarm clock by now, but I still have a habit of setting ten alarms on my phone, just in case. I also have an emergency alarm clock that Colin, our cat, absolutely hates. It's even more unbearable than a defecting politician's gushing speech.
Sleep is a funny thing. I know it restores the body, ready for the next day, but it's really weird when you stop and actually think about it. And a new survey by Bensons for Beds has found that more than half of Brits (52%) say poor sleep has a negative effect on our mood, whilst more than one in four (28%) say it affects our mood more than having a cold. A staggering three quarters of those questioned would rather enjoy perfect sleep than receive £1,000. I think I'd go along with that. Having been spending lots of cash on home improvements lately, a grand can vanish in the blink of an eye, whereas I'd kill for a bit more time in the land of nod. Some people who do early shifts like to take a nap, but that makes me feel like I've been slapped round the face with a wet Whitby cod, so I tend to power through the afternoon with strong coffee, and try to avoid the post-lunch slump.
Stuff that keeps us awake was also covered in the study, and top of the list are worries about money and family, followed by work anxiety. I once dreamt that I'd overslept and missed the start of the breakfast show on Tameside Radio, with the news coming to an end at 7am, followed by total silence (known in the trade as 'dead air'). In my dream, the boss Em rang me up to check I was okay, as the radio station had fallen off the airwaves. Sadly, at that moment, I realised it wasn't a dream, and I had actually overslept! It's only happened a handful of times in my 23 years of being on the radio, but it's a truly awful feeling.
Other things that stop us from falling into a deep slumber include staying up to doom scroll, extreme weather, fretting about getting enough sleep while trying to sleep, dogs barking, partner snoring and binge-watching TV shows. I am guilty of looking at social media late at night and getting wound up by the divisive algorithm on occasion, and I am vowing to look at less political stuff these days in favour of reading a good crime fiction book. At the moment, I am devouring Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister, which is briliant. A proper page-turner.
Falling asleep in the wrong place is also a risky business. Reclining cinema seats and a dull film can occasionally mean an unplanned micro sleep. I think I slept through a good chunk of Peter Rabbit when it came out in 2018, and definitely missed a few minutes of The Spongebob Movie after finishing my ice cream and getting a bit too comfortable. One of the scariest moments of my life was having a 'micro sleep' whilst driving on the A64, and I fully understand all the matrix signs that warn of the perils of driving tired. My life literally flashed before my eyes on that occasion. And to end this column on a somewhat lighter note, a friend of mine once went into a York radio station to present a local overnight show (in the days when they were a thing) straight from bringing in the New Year at a DJ gig, and fell asleep with the microphone switched on. All you could hear on air for a good hour was his gentle snoring, which prevented the back-up tape from kicking in!
