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. 

The only thing that my wife talks about with genuine awe is how I once got on an eight-hour transatlantic flight and told her I was going to sleep until we landed in Dublin. I did it, no bother at all.

I also have some previous with sleepwalking. As a kid, I’d regularly wake up and walk around for a bit and head back to bed. I’m proud to say not once did I pee in a wardrobe. If you're talking to one of my sisters and they tell you otherwise they are lying. Thankfully I’ve only sleepwalked a few times in adulthood. 

By far the most embarrassing was in Mallow, County Cork, about 20 years ago. I was gigging in a venue in the town, supporting the comedian Jason Byrne.

The promoter managed to secure accommodation in Longville House a beautiful and extremely plush old world estate house just outside the town. It was - and possibly still is - the nicest place I’ve ever stayed in. At the time I was used to sleeping in bedsits and on other people's floors, not in four poster beds. 

The bathrooms had heated silver rails layered with thick fluffy white towels. There was a chaise lounge beside the bed. It took me about an hour after checking to realise, “Oh this is just for me.” There were the most accommodating and nicest people on earth running the place too.

We had a few (maybe more than a few) drinks that night and the next morning I woke up to discover clumps of soil all over the bed and the carpet. I panicked and didn’t know what to do or what I had done. I desperately tried to clean (or cover up) my mess. When I eventually went down for breakfast the next morning the owner and Jason started to burst out laughing.

Apparently, after I went to bed they saw me walking around the fields at the front of the house where the sheep were grazing. I was wearing nothing only my underpants a T-shirt and my shoes. I was mortified and I’ll always remember the owner's response. He made me freshly squeezed orange juice. Now that’s hospitality.

Over the years, I even developed my own personal dream factory. I would decide what I wanted to dream about before I nodded off and it would materialise. I could even get up, to go the toilet and head back to bed and restart the dream from where I left off. I’m pretty sure I was Ireland's first professional sleeper. 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 of sleep a night. Like a lot of families we all to go to sleep in one bed and wake up in another. On occasions where I've been away from home, I also find it hard to sleep. I know it's a combination of kids, stress and ageing, but I’m also a terror for watching Netflix in bed.

Over the last six months I’ve cut out caffeine after noon, I turn off my phone and iPad and limit screen time. I've even forced myself to drink turmeric tea to wind down, but none of it sent me to snooze town.

I bought the silk pillowcase that supposedly makes you dose off immediately while also preserving the youthfulness of your face. I've ran the bubble bath while drinking camomile tea but this only made me feel more awake. I’ve started to swim again and get more exercise during the day. 

At night, instead of screen time I’m reading Edward Gibbons The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire; it’s a masterpiece but you tend to have enough of the trials and tribulations of the senate after a fortnight and unlike Game of Thrones I know how this one ends. The clue is in the title. None of the above have help me sleep and then one night …

I got so angry with myself I just said: “I'm not going asleep.” I told my brain: “Think about what you want, brain, because I’m not going to sleep.” I got up and started to watch Netflix and told my body: “I don’t care if you're stiff and groggy in the morning because I’m not going to sleep.” 

I basically, without realising, became a toddler again screaming at my parents: “I’M NOT GOING TO SLEEP.” It worked.

The more I fought off the sleep, the more I got tired. The more I tried to fight falling asleep, the more it made me doze off. When I told my wife, her response was: “You're performing reverse psychology on yourself, you idiot, that’s how awkward you are.”

She might well be right but it works for me. Oh, it could possibly be that I switched to decaf coffee but there’s no fun in that.