Two Bits – 30 January 2015

We all go through cycles of sleeping well or badly, and it is so irritating how we don’t have any control over when it happens.
They say sleeplessness is caused by stress, but sometimes when I’m perfectly calm but simply can’t fall asleep, I start thinking about things that happened during the working day, like a rude phone call or a mistake in the business that cost me money, and next thing I’m so wound up I only fall asleep when I’m completely exhausted.
I’ve tried counting sheep jumping through a gap in an imaginary hedge, but that simply doesn’t work for me. I start having irrelevant thoughts, like ‘shouldn’t every 10th sheep be a ram, or a lamb?’ And what if the sheepdog wants to get through the hedge, as well? Then I decide I really don’t like sheep, anyway, stupid things, and who cares how many there are? By now I’m in a right stew and wide awake. So much for that.
Chatting to a friend about the problem the other day, he suggested a relaxation technique he’d picked up from yoga, the 4-7-8 breathing trick. You simply breathe in for four seconds, hold the breath for seven seconds, and breathe out for eight seconds. This is supposed to slow the heart rate and trigger just the right response from your body.
What did I have to lose? So that night I got into bed, lay on my back and started: in for four, hold for seven and out for eight. Did that three times and panted for a bit, because it’s not easy getting the rhythm right, and repeated it.
Next thing I knew, I was waking up in the morning! I couldn’t believe it!
Have you ever had a general anaesthetic? First time I had one, the doc gave me the initial injection and I lay there for a minute or so, wondering when it was going to take effect . . . and next thing I woke up in the ward the next morning.
So the next time I had an operation I was determined to pinpoint the moment I started feeling drowsy. There was no point to it, I just wanted to feel that I knew what was going on. So in went the needle and I stared at the ceiling, thinking ‘I feel fine, I feel fine, I feel . . .’ . . . and woke up in the ward eight hours later.
Well, it’s perhaps not quite as dramatic, but this 4-7-8 method is the next best thing to an anaesthetic. The second time I tried it, I was awake for maybe two minutes after the second set of three, then gone in la-la-land.
Since then – it’s been a couple of weeks now – it’s been working like a charm. It can also be used to get back to sleep when you wake up in the middle of the night, which at my age can be a few times for bladder relief.
So, to repeat, you breathe in through your nose for four seconds, hold the breath for seven seconds, then exhale through your mouth for eight seconds. It works because holding your breath for longer than you are used to and then exhaling slowly, forces your heart rate to slow quite dramatically.
When you first start, you’ll be desperate to just take in another breath, or you’ll want to speed up your counting, but if you stick to the numbers (or at least try to) at least three times, then breathe regularly for a minute, then go back to another set of three, you can feel your heart slow down. As you get better at it, keep going until you fall asleep.
It works for me – try it, it may help you as well.
* * *
The first mate on a ship decided to celebrate an occasion with a little stowed away rum. Unfortunately he got drunk and was still drunk the next morning.
The captain saw him drunk and when the first mate was sober, showed him the following entry in the ship’s log: “The first mate was drunk today.”
“Captain, please don’t let that stay in the log,” the mate pleaded. “This could add months or years to my becoming a captain myself.”
“Is it true?” asked the captain, already knowing the answer.
“Yes, it’s true,” the mate said.
“Then if it is true it has to go in the log. That’s the rule. If it’s true it goes into the log, end of discussion,” said the captain sternly.
Weeks later, it was the first mate’s turn to make the log entries. The first mate wrote: “The ship seems in good shape. The captain was sober today.”