The psychology of tiredness

Why don't we go to sleep earlier?

You know, like you vow to every morning when you get up, when your body is screaming out, begging you to stay horizontal? Insisting that you're at the end of your tether, there is absolutely no chance you will get through today unless you have another couple of hours' kip.

Lights out by 10pm tonight, my husband and I often agree, before dawn. Sometimes even 9:30pm, we promise eachother, like deluded fools.

We all have our own ways of getting through the day. Coffee, music, hard drugs, exercise - whatever works for you. Lots of people have a dip at some point, when they renew their vow about having an early night. Often it's in the afternoon, seated in front of a computer, when they realise they've only actually done a total of half an hour's work since lunchtime, and decide to cover this up in plain sight by proclaiming dramatically - "I need sugar!".

But then, somehow, evening comes around, you're in bed, and this odd second wind blows in. Why not read another chapter? Catch up with twitter? Watch another episode, because Netflix is going to play it in 15 seconds anyway, and you can't find the remote control? Answer that work e-mail, because then you can go to sleep feeling smug because you've had the last word?

"Actually, I don't feel that tired," you tell your other half, with a note of wonder in your voice. (They then misinterpret you, get their hopes up, and let's not go there.)

And so the cycle carries on. It is one of the things I find most annoying about myself.

Since you ask, the list of things I find annoying can be separated into three subsets:

Things that are my own fault

• The scales in the bathroom giving me the wrong answer when I stand on them.
• Getting really wound up about some work thing that doesn't merit the effort, or fixating on an insurmountable problem that dissolves when you put it in perspective that evening at rioja o'clocka.
• The 40 children coming to Logie and Felix's birthday party this Saturday. Forty. FOUR-TEEEEE.

Things that involve a lack of respect from others

• When Logie has a runny nose, or a milk moustache, he heads towards me. Not to get a tissue, but to literally wipe himself on me. Whatever I am wearing. To him, I am a piece of kitchen roll in human form. 
• Cab drivers asking "Wet enough for you?" when it's raining.
• Passive-aggressive women saying "Do you like my trousers? You should get some, they go up to absolutely huge sizes, and they're really good quality."

Things I just find baffling

• Modern loos with two buttons for flushing. Which is which? I'm really asking. I don't know. I can see the logic for both. And when one is a small jigsaw piece of a bigger button - do you press both at the same time in some circs or what? I am genuinely at a loss on so many occasions, and I fear the same could be said for much of the nation. But we're all too embarrassed to ask. Presumably our children are being taught the rules in school these days, so at least they will grow up knowing what to do. But otherwise how were we supposed to know? Was there a memo? A public health campaign, with posters at the GP? Maybe it's perfectly obvious to the rest of you, but I like to get these things right.
• People who wear their staff passes around their necks on the commute to and from work.
• Signs above letterboxes that say 'No junk mail please'. You know they don't actually work, right? The people posting pizza leaflets and minicab cards through your door don't count their special offer as junk. They might not even be able to read.

But I suspect the sleep thing is a bad habit that many of us share. I sort of agree with people who won't tolerate any "I'm just so tired" whinging, on a just go to sleep earlier/don't go out every night then/your job's actually not that hard basis. But I venture there is something deeper going on.

Because even people who really are that tired, the mothers of small babies, who are genuinely sleep-deprived and so exhausted they could puke...they sometimes do it too. They treat themselves to a bath after supper and kid themselves that it might actually sleep through the night tonight. They don't 'just' sleep in the day whenever the baby sleeps. 

Even they fall victim to the heady sensation of doing something nice. Of being conscious, briefly free of things you have to do, and free to do things you want to do. It's exhilarating. It's distracting. It's stupid, but you always were a bit of a rebel. It gives you power. And who feels like that when they're asleep?

Weight loss

I lost weight over Christmas.

I know. I KNOW!

Let me walk you through the feelings you are experiencing right now. They're very natural, and you shouldn't feel ashamed of them.

1) Disbelief. 
Actually, you're right to question this. I have fudged it a bit (if only). I weighed myself this morning, having not done so for about a month. In theory I've been on a diet since the summer, but allowed myself to go off the books over the Christmas fortnight. In practice I took my foot off the accelerator for most of December, and have been scrupulously back on it - and in the gym - for the last ten days.

God knows how big the spike was during the festive gluttony, but I am a whole 0.2lb lighter than my last weigh-in. Please don't stop reading because of this undramatic perspective.

2) Jealousy.
Don't be. I am still fatter than you.

3) Curiosity.
Now is when most people would start doing detective work. But diets are absolutely the most boring thing to talk about. I loathe being on one, hate (thin) people who are always doing the latest fad, and start to tune out after three sentences. So here are the facts, and then we can get it over and done with.

I'm currently about a size 15. Between August and November last year I lost just over a stone, then 'plateaued'. No, I haven't given up booze, not even for January - haven't you met me?

I'm not following a specific diet, just some guidelines that I cobbled together from the gist of all the nutrition and weight-loss advice that I have come across in the last couple of years: less carbs, more veg, protein for breakfast and no sugar. I have ignored the bits that I simply didn't want to do, eg cut out alcohol, or dairy. I mean, you can't do everything can you? 

However this does mean that when I return home after a long day of work, exercise and worthy eating, I make such a beeline for the wine and cheese in the fridge that I regularly bat my children out of the way, flying into the walls they go, clutching the non-edible useless things they made at nursery that day that they were trying to show me.

Now I know a lot of people eat like this all the time anyway. But I am not like them. I find it hard. Hardest of all is giving up the white baguette we often get for lunch on a Saturday, the comfort one gets from pasta, all forms of the blessed potato, praise be upon him...because I am only allowed to eat good carbs, ie the boring ones. But what these people, usually women, consider a treat is the sweet stuff. 

Biscuits, cake, chocolate. Now don't get me wrong, I like them and will happily gorge on them if I've mislaid my willpower. (Note to the drycleaners: thank you for the large box of chocolate biscuits you unexpectedly gave us for Christmas, but please don't do it again next year, as if it weren't for you I probably could have written this a week earlier.) But if I could only choose one food group to eat forever it would be carbs. And anyway, everyone knows that the people who choose puddings over starters are losers.

The other great temptation for me is children's food. During the week, when they're with me, my children eat children's food, you see. Gotta problem with that? Because Logie's got quite fussy, Felix always wants what Logie has, I don't see anything wrong with basically feeding them scraps and a few cupboard or freezer staples, and I didn't eat loads of things until I was in my 20s and it didn't do me any harm (apart from getting fat after university...hmm, maybe there's a connection there...). So I'm not going to plan elaborate meals just for them. At the weekend, they can eat what we eat.

Before you ring Social Services though, Felix eats three meals a day at his daycare nursery two days a week, things he would never eat at home - chickpea curry! And they both have tea at our lovely Algerian childminder's place on a Wednesday, where again they both eat things they would literally throw back in my face if I tried - vegetable soup!

Anyway, the greatest battle I fight is with a leftover fishfinger. The last few mouthfuls of pesto pasta. I can't bear to see food wasted (is often the excuse if I have company). Do you know how hard it is for people like me not to steal a chip from your ungrateful child's plate, especially if you have bought it for them in a cafe and they say they don't want it any more? 

But, my friends, my curious colleagues, you must resist. Either have none, or decide in advance to have them all. You cannot have just one. It is biologically impossible. Remember that. Treat kids' food like kryptonite, sellotape up your mouth at teatime if necessary, but never forget where your true enemy lies.

Of course I have forgotten that, and have gone embarrassingly off piste at a couple of 4-year-old's birthday parties recently. 

Let's not dwell on the spectacle I made of myself there. I leave you with some final advice, which is why you should ignore the 'tips' that often accompany eating plans in the press

• Don't use food as a reward - Why not? Curly kale's not an incentive for anything.
• Keep some nuts or seeds in your officer drawer to snack on - Don't. If it's there, you'll eat it. Remember that all diets are essentially about eating less.
• Have a big drink of water - Not if it's after supper, or you'll have to get up for an extra wee in the night. Then you won't get back to sleep, you'll be tired in the morning, and find yourself  finishing your toddler's peanut butter on toast.
• Don't eat supper too late - If you give up regularly eating with, and cooking for, your husband you'll have a row, then the house will smell of takeaway, then you'll fold. You do the food shopping. You have the power.
• Check the supermarket aisles to see what's seasonal - Don't go near them. Shop online, from a list. Wear blinkers if necessary.
• Don't comfort eat - I can't diet when I'm depressed. When I am, it's one of the few animal pleasures that remain. If you are ill, try not to beat yourself up about anything.
• Wait half an hour and see if you're still hungry - If you could do that, you wouldn't need to be on a fricking diet.