Bernard O'Shea: 'Can't sleep? Here's the one thing that works for me'

I used to be one of Ireland’s greatest sleepers - but as I got older and kids appeared, things changed. In the last five years I've been lucky to get three or four hours a night

Bernard O'Shea:'I find it hard to sleep these days. I know it's a combination of kids, stress and ageing, but I’m also a terror for watching Netflix in bed.' Picture: Brian Arthur

I used to be a lot of things. I used to be thinner. I used to be fitter. I used to be able to have more than two drinks and not wake up feeling like a chainsaw convention was in full swing in my head. But moreover, I used to be one of Ireland’s greatest sleepers.

My sleeping heroics were orally recounted throughout my family like passages from the Taín. My mother recalls that on one Christmas Day when I was 17 I slept for a full 16 hours from 5pm to 9am the following morning. She gleefully tells me and anyone else who’ll listen that it was the earliest id ever woken up on my own without her having to drench or drag me out of the bed.