Mrs Helicopter Writes

If you're someone who struggles to sleep *flings hand up* then you are possibly obsessed, like me, with how other people sleep. How do people sleep? How can anyone EVER sleep?!  You may be one of those super lucky people who can sleep on a chicken’s lip! You put your head on the pillow and poof! You're asleep! You absolute lucky dabber. My relationship with sleep has always been weird. Apparently, I slept well as a baby. I was a very early riser, but I needed my bed early. I remember in Junior school my bedtime was always earlier than my friends. Boo! No Adrian Mole for me! But if I got overtired, I would get really nauseous and often actually vom. (Bad times for my vom-averse mother!)  As an adult I've had lots of bouts of bad sleep especially during stressful periods. I remember visiting a lavender farm in Oz and left convinced that the "sleep balm" I'd bought held the key to the secrets of sleep! It didn't. My pregnancies were tricky, and sleep was ...

Christmas is without a shadow of a doubt my favourite time of year. I am super lucky because growing up my family really invested in creating traditions and making it a magical time of year for us. Not with money, we didn’t have much of that growing up, but just with making such a big fuss of the season. So for me it’s still a magical time of celebration, happiness and fun with the added bonus of living that magic vicariously through my children. But this year, something changed. The stress outweighed the excitement of the season and I almost had a breakdown. I started to have panic attacks and I had to go and see my *counsellor to get me through the holidays. I can’t say I actually decompressed until several days after Christmas day, despite having lovely times in between. But I just wanted it to be over. I couldn’t cope with the weight of expectation laid so heavily at my door. Laid at the door of the wife, the daughter, the mother, the granddaughter, the daughter-in-law. And ...

What in the heck is ASMR? Have you heard of it? It has completely changed my life! OK that sounds super dramatic but it’s definitely changed my sleep and that, in turn, has changed my life. Because I am less tired. So my life is mildly better, but you know that IS a change, technically speaking.  But what IS it though?   The pseudo-scientific name itself is an acronym.  Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response . A phrase coined by Jennifer Allen, who came up with this term after  years of discussions  in internet forums (because, of course)  with fellow experiencers of the "tingles". The best way to describe the feeling is a warm, comforting, tingly sensation...like hairs on your neck standing up or prickles in your hair line.... as a  response  to seeing but, more often than not, HEARING certain sounds.  It's an extremely pleasurable experience.... like a mild  euphoria .  Another way to describe it is, when you...