For two years I had the bedroom of someone who sleeps beautifully. Lamps at the correct height. No screens after nine. A herbal tea I have never once enjoyed, drunk nightly in the spirit of taking a vitamin.
The room was immaculate. I was still awake in it. If you have ever done everything correctly and got nowhere, you will know the particular irritation involved.
It took a six-month course of the Hypnozan 8H Program, and three separate corrections to my own thinking, before that stopped being the arrangement.
Wrong: that the room was the problem
Nothing in that routine was bad advice. It was simply aimed at the wrong target. Dimming the lights does very little about what was actually going on at half past 10, which had nothing to do with the room and everything to do with the company I was keeping.
Because I was not alone in there. I was replaying a conversation from that afternoon and quietly improving my own lines. I was reopening a decision I had already made, on the theory that a second attempt might better it. I was rehearsing something I would never actually say to somebody who had long since forgotten the whole thing.
None of it was distressing. It was just loud, and it was remarkably punctual.
Wrong: that I would feel it arrive
Hypnozan 8H is a two-part supplement: a botanical formula with valerian root, lemon balm, motherwort and hops, plus vitamins B6 and B12, alongside magnesium bisglycinate with vitamin B6, both in vegan capsules. It is meant to be taken as one thing rather than split up and cross-examined. Magnesium and vitamins B6 and B12 contribute to the normal functioning of the nervous system, to normal psychological function, and to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue. It is a food supplement, not a treatment for anything.
What I was waiting for, though, was a feeling. Something that would announce itself around the time the lamp went off and settle the question for me.
Nothing announced itself. That expectation nearly cost me the whole exercise, because for several weeks I decided, on no real evidence, that nothing was happening.
In hindsight it is the more sensible way round. Anything that arrived like a switch being thrown would tell me a great deal about the capsule and almost nothing about my evenings.
Wrong: that a fortnight proves anything
By the second and third month the difference was plain enough to say out loud. The evenings were quieter. Bedtime had stopped being the busiest part of my head’s day, and I was falling asleep noticeably sooner once the light went off. Not instantly. Sooner, and reliably enough that I stopped keeping score.
I finished the full six months for two reasons. I wanted to see whether it held up once the year got busier, and having started a course, I would rather have finished it than wondered.
That is my six months. It is not a schedule anyone else should expect to keep, and I would distrust any article that handed you one.
The unromantic bit
It is not suitable during pregnancy or breastfeeding, and it should not be taken alongside alcohol or other sedatives. Anyone taking regular medication, particularly for blood pressure, blood thinning or heart rhythm, should speak to a healthcare professional before starting.
The lamps stayed. So did the tea, against all reason. I was never wrong about the routine itself, only about how much work I was quietly asking it to do on its own.
