sex and the city, summer insomnia, insomnia, sleeplessness, exhaustion, tired

Things you only know if you have summer insomnia

Birds don’t sleep

Presumably all you sleep-through-the-night freaks think birds heralded the break of dawn. They do not. They chat all night. You think this might be comforting as you roam around your house, deranged and desperate for sleep. You wonder if their song might make you feel less alone; might soothe you. It doesn’t. It’s loud. It’s incessant. Like school girls at the back of a coach.

Sleeping naked is not sexy

Heatwave nakedness is necessary to help with the interference in your thermoregulation. The body’s core temperature drops to help you fall asleep. Then the bastard switches off, leaving you to fend for yourself. Naked sleeping is nothing to do with sex. It’s to do with sweat. Approaching a naked insomniac (who may well have their eyes closed because they are close to death) with any kind of amorous intent is profoundly unwise.

Thanks for nothing, Will Smith

It is customary for the insomniac to have a song raging around their head. You may stay on brand and find yourself desperately trying to remember all the lyrics to Summertime by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. That will then segue into the rap bit –which you will then have to Google because you can’t remember the line after ‘On the playground was where I spent most of my days,’ and that’s you awake from blue light stimulation FOREVER.

An eye mask just might save your life

Insomniacs are not in possession of their full faculties. How can they be? Their brains are like cars that have the petrol sign flashing red and pinging. They are hyper-sensitive to disturbance of any kind. A mouse rolling over in its sleep four streets away. The fan of the person next door. The tiniest chink of light, which will get into your room even if you brick the windows up. Eye masks are the paramedics of summer nights.

However, sunrise is a bonus

The only upshot to summer insomnia is being awake for the sunrise, which on a clear morning is a lovely thing, plus it helps you cope with the beginning of your adrenaline spike as your body starts to panic about you having to get up. Every cloud!

People are noisy and thoughtless

You need your window open. You do not need drunk people in the street shouting, “Dave? DAVE? Did you order an Uber? Where are my keys? Dave, you bastard – have you got my keys?” at 3.30am.

Love Island truths

Hours and hours awake at night spent wondering why you are now secretly missing Adam since he got booted off Love Island/how Laura should become a lecturer on female dignity/Megan should be an assassin/you love Dani and Jack more than your own family/whether you would actually shag someone on telly if it might win you 50k.

Duvet dramas

You’ll start to develop very mixed feelings towards your duvet. First, you’ll become hysterical about what tog it is without fully understanding the whole tog system. You’ll cast it off in the night, then you’ll forgive it and drag it back. Then cast it off. Drag it back. Like Carrie and Big, but with feathers.

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