After 20 years of insomnia, here’s how I survive with no sleep ...Middle East

I remember well when it began.

It was the autumn of 2006, and my wife and I had got our south London basement flat just as we wanted it. But a dodgy drain let us down.

Dirty water seeped slowly in through a manhole, which existed – unbeknown to us – beneath the bathroom floor. It soaked the new carpets in the bedroom and the hallway, got into the skirting boards and threatened to ruin the myriad possessions stashed under our bed.

We had the drain cleared and surveyed; the carpets were replaced, thankfully covered by insurance. It wouldn’t happen again. But it did, albeit not as badly. The carpets were not completely wrecked that time and the drain man said it would now be OK.

Yet I didn’t believe him. I lay awake at night, occasionally leaning out of bed to check if the floor was wet. When it rained, I felt on edge. Often, I would get up and sit on the sofa, watching anything on Sky Sports to try to keep my mind off the impending flood – a cricket match in New Zealand, wrestling, snooker; it didn’t matter.

I had never experienced insomnia before. But now it was a regular occurrence – plainly a response to the stress of my plumbing paranoia. I tossed and turned, watching as the night sky lightened, fearing how little I had slept. I sometimes read long, boring biographies, anxiously glancing at the clock and figuring out how many zzzzzs I could still catch if I miraculously got back to sleep.

A year later, we moved out, leaving London to start a family. We’d loved our first place together but I’d also grown to hate it, convinced that it was the cause of my sleep issues.

In Hertfordshire, we found a house without a basement, up a hill. No flooding would happen here – and it hasn’t. But my insomnia had travelled with us. It had survived the flood.

Not that it was always present. I had months when I slept well, when even if I did wake in the early hours, I knew without question that I would fall straight back into a slumber.

But then the monster would reappear without warning, nibbling at me at 2am, holding my eyelids open or blowing ice onto my feet. My mind would turn to work dilemmas, or lists of things to do. I would see in 3am, 4am, then 5. If it got to six o’clock, subsequent sleep would almost be worse than none – a few minutes adrift before the shock of the alarm.

I tried hot baths, warm showers; early nights, late nights; no wine, more wine. Year after year, sleeplessness would wax and wane – external stress levels seemed irrelevant. What, I thought, if I never got the insomniac monkey off my back for good?

Two things slowly dawned on me. First, I might indeed never be totally rid of the disorder. Second, and most importantly, did it matter?

I knew that compared to some sufferers I was lucky. Even in my worst periods, I would rarely have more than three or four bad nights in a row; there was always a point of relief. The odd tab of Night Nurse or melatonin would do the trick if I was desperate. What’s more, I could mostly function: even on two hours’ sleep, I knew I would get through the next day alright.

I also came to see that the things which I might dwell on when I couldn’t sleep were usually not very important in the cold light of day, and certainly would not be resolved by thrashing them round my brain at four in the morning. A bereavement broke my heart but gave me perspective.

Instead of wading through middle-of-the-night worry, I started to lean into wakefulness. If I woke and couldn’t get back to sleep within 10 minutes, I got up and read a book: something unexciting or a story from my childhood (currently Winter Holiday, the greatest of Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons tales). After two chapters, I would go back to bed; if sleep didn’t come, two more chapters.

Often, it works. But if it doesn’t, I might do a mundane work task or some dull life admin. Low brain power but something achieved.

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And if I’m unable to sleep by 5am on a sunny, summer Saturday, I might simply get dressed, pull on my walking boots and head into the hills. It’s much better to feel the tiredness of 15,000 steps before breakfast than the weariness of circular conversations with yourself beneath the duvet.

It’s estimated that a third of adults in the UK suffer from insomnia at some point; one in six have experienced it for a decade or more. Better sleep routines, less caffeine, and tackling any underlying health issues can all help. Yet there isn’t always an easy fix – and for many people, the dread of another sleepless night is a curse.

So forgive me if you find the following impossible to imagine, but it might be that the hours of extra wakefulness can be a blessing. A time when you rediscover the stories of your childhood. Or when you file the documents that have piled up on the kitchen side. Or when you step out into an early dawn before the world is even astir.

Hence then, the article about after 20 years of insomnia here s how i survive with no sleep was published today ( Wednesday 26/11/2025 - 04:42 PM ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.

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