 feels counterintuitive, and a total waste of time. I also prioritise sleep above socialising. If I meet friends for dinner, I'll always peddle the 6pm nana-booking, calculating when I'll need to leave to get my full sleep quota. I am, frankly, aghast if anyone has the temerity to suggest an 8.30pm dinner and will probably just decline. I am the first to leave the cosy fireside circle on summer camping trips with friends; that smoky, rum-soaked moment when the stars are out, the kids are cosily tucked up, and the adults are relishing the prospect of chatting into the night. Apart from me, that is. I'll be so full of envy for the slumbering kids that I'm counting the moments until I can quietly slope off to our tent to enjoy that blissful drift to sleep, lulled by the sound of hushed chatter. I have always marvelled at the politicians – Donald Trump tweeting at 2am – and high-achievers like Helena Morrissey and Martha Stewart, who famously hardly sleep at all. Frankly, I do not know how they manage being awake for so long each day. By the way, this is all in stark contrast to the almost pathological fear of missing out that defines my day-to-day life. But, despite being powered mostly by FOMO, I am the one standing firmly up as soon as is reasonably fitting at any soiree and saying, 'well, goodnight then', even when my fellow diners are on the brink of late-night revelations and delicious gossipy exchanges. I am the one who is weak with relief at the well-mannered friends who start exchanging 'we should leave' glances at 11pm, just as my husband is getting out the Suze and Lillet Blanc to make white negronis (while I am wondering how rude it would be to politely excuse mys){kind=link}
A good night’s kip is vital for protecting cognitive decline as we age, and a recent study has only proved what I’ve known all along
My name is Victoria and I’m a sleep addict. There. I’ve said it. And if you think that sounds sad and that I must be missing out on a million and one life-enriching experiences that happen only after dark as a result, you are probably right. But I don’t care.
And now it looks like I’ll have the last laugh, at least according to a new study by UCL scientists, published in the Lancet Healthy Longevity journal, which highlights the need for sleep to protect against cognitive decline as people get older. According to the study, middle-aged people who do not get enough sleep are less likely to see the benefits of exercise when it comes to protecting against a decline in skills such as memory and thinking.
If that is true then I will be in good shape. Much to my husband’s chagrin, I am firmly of the view that nothing good happens after 11pm at the weekend, and after 9.30pm on a school night.
In fact, getting into bed then, the same time as my 13-year-old son turns in, feels to me like the biggest treat I could give myself. I almost cringe to write these words, which would once have triggered in me a massive eye-roll, but sinking my head onto a crisply ironed cotton pillowcase spritzed with lavender pillow spray is a moment of such delicious surrender I can think of little to rival it.