In 2,3,4, hold, 2,3,4,5,6,7,out,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 – and Z doesn’t relax

Yesterday, I devoted the whole evening to preparation for sleep.  No television, little time spent at the computer, lovely music, warm bath, light but sustaining food and so on.  I went to bed early and read the papers, but nothing upsetting.  I drank herbal tea.

I did go to sleep quite quickly, but woke around midnight for three hours.  After a while, having listened to another episode of War and Peace (the first hour or so was spent in silent darkness), I gave in and looked at my phone.  On Facebook, someone had ‘liked’ a post about getting to sleep – I didn’t mark it myself and now I can’t find it again, but it was about breathing.  The idea is to breathe in for 4 seconds, hold it for 7 seconds and then breathe out for 8 seconds.  According to the person who wrote it – clearly an individual, it wasn’t an advertisement – this worked like magic for her, she is usually asleep before she finishes the first exhalation.  I’m really bad at the meditation sort of thing, which both bores and irritates me to the point I have to stop, but this seemed simple and worth a try.

Boring, irritating and it didn’t work.  I did it eight times and it was, if anything distracting me and stopping me from relaxing – the idea is, it slows your heart rate, which makes you doze off.  It was rather like a sleep pillow for me, though – the supposedly soporific herbs wake me up.

After catching up on Scrabble games with other wakeful people, I turned the phone off again and finally dozed off, and didn’t wake up until 9.30 this morning.  So I did get a decent amount of sleep overall and, though I woke with the heavy headache that I usually get when I sleep late, I feel rested. However, this is almost as destructive to a normal life as not sleeping and clearly I can’t have my life revolve around preparing to go to bed.

According to my Facebook feed, there are quite a lot of us who can’t sleep.  There must be an answer to this.

Anyway, my pans arrived 36 hours after I’d ordered them and three days before I was told they were due. Considering that this was over the weekend, I can only  be wildly impressed.

By the way, does anyone have any experience of using Flexiseq?

6 comments on “In 2,3,4, hold, 2,3,4,5,6,7,out,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 – and Z doesn’t relax

  1. kipper

    Flexiseq (where do they come up with those names?) is not available here in the U.S. A friend says that increasing the amount of fish oil tablets has radically decreased his joint pain and swelling. I think he takes three or four pills total throughout a day.

    Reply
  2. Liz

    Whilst I’ve never been a particularly good sleeper, I have never suffered the sort of insomnia that you seem to have. Sometimes I sleep well, sometimes I don’t. I used to worry about it but it rarely bothers me now. In my 30s when I was the height of my worrying about not sleeping, I did try some breathing exercises, but for me personally anything that involves counting requires a lot of concentration and that alone is guaranteed to keep me awake!

    Reply
  3. Rog

    The Flexiseq video looked a little bit too good to be true but if it isn’t I’m in the queue! I’m certain that smartphones and tablets are the enemy of sleep although the radio player is good to doze off to.

    Reply
  4. Z Post author

    A friend of a Facebook friend recommended it, she mentioned that the drying time does matter, so let it dry before putting clothes on – she uses a hairdryer to speed the process, sometimes. I don’t need anything at present, but last time I found that painkillers didn’t really help enough to be worth bothering with. I only realised the pain I must have been in the night after the operation when I woke up, all the painkillers had worn off and I realised the post-operative pain from a major operation was no worse than the arthritis, so I didn’t bother to ask for anything more until the morning. I’m still rather shocked at not having realised how much it hurt. Anyway, the more effusive are the testimonials, the less I tend to believe them, but I still think it might be worth a shot.

    Actually, just breathing in, holding my breath and then breathing out slowly and deeply is probably worth trying again. It’s the counting that distracted. Last night, it took me a whole episode of W&P to fall asleep, but I slept well after that – sheer exhaustion, I expect!

    Reply
  5. sablonneuse

    Sorry to hear you are still not sleeping well. However, I’m quite relieved to know that someone else besides me can’t get on with meditation. I’ve tried the breathing technique and find I can’t concentrate on it for very long. My mind just wanders.

    Flexiseq looks interesting but it would be good to hear from someone we know personally who has actually used it and found it effecive wouldn’t it?

    Reply

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