Given the usual stresses of life – children, parents, 20 years with a snoring husband etc… – my perennial insomnia is manageable. Add to the mix; builders, two years’ worth of 3D design GCSE coursework to be completed in two weeks (thanks to an incompetent teacher), seasoned with a highly disturbed and violent infant in my youngest’s class, and the balance tips alarmingly towards no sleep at all. Margaret Thatcher may have coped admirably with five hours of dormancy per night, but even she would have struggled with three hours of somnolence for long periods of time.
Desperation drove me to adopting a practice advocated by a wise cousin. Sceptically, I placed two drops of lavender essential oil near my pillow and was amazed by the results. Yes, I am still woken up – several times each night – by the most irritating foghorn of snoring imaginable, but the quality of my hard won sleep is deeper, calmer and more refreshing. What I had previously dismissed as “an old wives’ tale” is in fact, incredibly beneficial.
If only there were essential oils to deal with snoring husbands, incompetent teachers and psychotic six year olds!
