I can't get no sleep

There's no release, no peace, I toss and turn without cease....

The lyrics from one of my favourite 90s club records Insomnia have come back to haunt me, and sadly there's no glowsticks in sight this time around. I've never been a great sleeper, but for the past month I've been trapped in the torment of a bout of sleeplessness that has seen me struggling to nod off, waking in the middle of the night, or getting up at 5am - meaning I'm getting an average of about four hours per night.

Last night I hit a new low. I was nodding off on the sofa so I went off to bed at about 11.30pm feeling fairly optimistic. Tonight's the night, I thought. I'd got new bedding on for the occasion, my favourite pink PJs (with tiny koala bears on them - very sexy), I'd had a nice little whisky to ease me on my way, and sleep was beckoning.

Unfortunately, after getting off to a cracking start, sleep stopped beckoning at about 2am - partly because the cat had, rather unsupportively, decided to go to sleep on my head. And I needed a wee. Damn whisky.

Bollocks. As all insomniacs know, if you're stuck in the cycle of sleeplessness, then once you wake up, you're screwed.

I tossed and turned for about 45 minutes, trying to think nice soothing thoughts. But of course, my stupid brain had already lapsed into that panicked loop of you're not asleep.... only four hours 'til your alarm goes off.... you've got work tomorrow.... you're not asleep.... only four hours 'til your alarm goes off.... you've got work tomorrow.... you're not asleep.... GO TO SLEEP YOU IDIOT.... GO TO SLEEP....

Must be my pillow's fault, I thought, giving it a good punch.

Nothing. Not helpful. Pillow unresponsive.

I went to the bathroom, then got a telling off from the cat upon my return.

"Waaaaaaaaa," she squawked at me as I shoved her out of the way to get back into bed. "Waaaaaaaa waaaaaaaaa waaaaaaaaaaaaa."

"Oh just sod off," I told her irritably.

I decided to switch the light on and read. Bronte's Villette is not exactly easy going, but even that failed to make me sleepy. After an hour or so I gave up, switched the light off and tried some relaxing breathing exercises.

Deep soothing breaths.... (but you're still not asleep)

Nice deep breaths..... (still not asleep)

Mmmmmmm nice gentle breaths..... (STILL NOT ASLEEP)

In desperation I grabbed my phone and decided to have a flick on Facebook... perhaps something to do with that lonely, silent helplessness you feel when you can't sleep. It reminds me a bit of Roald Dahl's The BFG, when the streets are quiet, the lights are out, the whole neighbourhood is in bed and then the giants come out in the small hours to snatch children from their beds. As anyone who suffers from insomnia will surely agree, when you're sleepless at 4am it can feel like you're the only person in the world who is awake.

Despite it being the wee small hours I could see a couple of friends were awake and online, and I stumbled across a colleague on Facebook who was also suffering and posting sleepless misery on his wall. I resisted the urge to join him (surely creating an insomnia pity party would just be a self-fulfilling prophecy - and getting into a web conversation would only wake me up further) but I did feel slightly less alone when he wandered into the office this morning looking as bleary and red-eyed as me.

"I saw you on Facebook at 4.30am," I told him. My other colleagues looked at me in alarm, clearly having not previously had me pegged as a wierdo internet stalker.

But we compared notes on our insomnia and discovered we'd both had about the same amount of shut-eye (roughly two hours).

"My rhythm is out of whack," he told me sadly.

And of course, he's right. A bout of insomnia is triggered by life's worries and stresses, but soon it spirals into worrying about the lack of sleep itself. You end up re-setting your internal body clock to sleepless mode and then it's tough to break the cycle.

When it reached 6am I gave it up as a lost cause, got out of bed, and wrote up the majority of this blog before work.

So how am I feeling today? Well it's been one hell of a busy day in the newsroom and I keep having to give myself a mental nudge to keep my eyes focused.

So what's all this moaning got to do with avoiding the supermarkets? Well not a great deal, I'll admit, apart from the fact that when you're sleep deprived your defences are down. It's no wonder new parents get so irritable and can only talk about nappies and mastitis. I had a little sleep-deprived wobble on Saturday where I very nearly went into our local Co-op, just basically because I was feeling so knackered I couldn't be bothered to cook myself any tea and just fancied grabbing a supermarket ready-meal.

I fought the urge and won and went to the greengrocers instead. But it just goes to show how when you're tired and low and uninspired, the supermarkets can really feel like the easy option. It's no wonder so many of my friends with kids have told me they could never manage to shop local.

Of course, it goes without saying that I'm not quitting this challenge, and I'm sure there will be perky blog posts about farmers' markets and local beer coming your way again soon.

But in the meantime, I'm already looking ahead to this coming evening with trepidation. An image of my bed is looming in my mind like a battle zone.

As the Faithless track goes, insomnia please release me....