ACCORDING to Amnesty International, sleep deprivation is the most commonly used form of torture. I know this to be true because recently my girlfriend and I have started killing each other from lack of sleep.
Maybe if we'd met by internet dating we could have seen it coming: "Chronic snorer seeks recurrent insomniac/light sleeper for bed games. Let's keep each other up all night, baby!"
I did not know I was a snorer till we got together, but now I am w
oken at least three times per night by a finger in my ribs. "Shhhhh!"
"I wasn't at it again, was I?"
"Like the bombing of Dresden! God, can't you hear yourself?"
And so one of us would invariably end up stomping off to inflate the overnight guest bed in the freezing cold at 4am.
For the sake of sanity, medical aids were resourced. There have been self-adhesive nose strips, which look like sticking plasters but have some kind of springy metal inside them to hold the nasal passages open. For some reason the packet proudly announces that they are "Skin colour", which is baffling since they are for wearing in the dark.
Websites offered such handy tips as: "A common remedy is to sew a tennis ball to the back of your pyjamas; the discomfort of sleeping on the ball will prevent you from staying on your back and so assist unobstructed breathing." I don't have a tennis ball and was damned if I was going to have to explain to a sports shop assistant why it was that I just needed one and not a pack of ten.
Then there was the homeopathic, orally administered anti-snoring spray which tasted like a combination of four-day-old boiled cabbage water and hospital floor cleaner. It should be noted that this product came with a disclaimer: "May help stop snoring." At about a tenner per 40 squirts, I was hoping for something rather more like, "100% guaranteed to eradicate nasal noise for life."
Many quid lighter and many lost nights of sleep later, girlfriend and I decided it was time to try every strategy at the same time: she had her top-range ear-plugs (designed for fighter pilots, the packaging claimed) her eye-mask, calming aromatherapy oil, a pre-sleep camomile tea and a herbal sleeping tablet. In addition, we put the new humidifier on and turned on our new white noise CD. I propped my head up with an extra pillow and had, as per website instruction, abstained all day from dairy and alcohol.
As if she was a military leader embarking on a dangerous mission, she turned to me before turning off the light.
"Snoring spray?"
"Check."
"Nasal Strips?"
"Check."
"OK. Good luck. The plugs are going in!"
Suffice to say, it was the worst night's sleep we ever had. She spent it worrying about what would happen if she couldn't sleep, and I had my ears primed to detect any trace of snoring needing subdued with another oral squirt.
Come daybreak we practically wept from failure. "I can't take this any longer!" I screamed as I threw my products to the floor. Then the strangest thing happened: in daylight, without plugs, strips or sprays, we collapsed into deep and blissful sleep.
