On TV

ZZZZZ....zzzzz...zzzzz. Sorry, I dropped off for a minute. Clearly the best way to send yourself to sleep is to watch Professor Robert Winston rabbiting on for 90 minutes on the subject of sleep.

That may be a cheap joke but programmes like this deserve no less. Is it public service broadcasting or a cheap way to fill a big chunk of peak time viewing?

"It occupies about a third of our lives," he began - talking about sleep, not TV watching.

"What turns a good night bad?," he continued, beginning to sound like a sex therapist.

One hundred self-confessed poor sleepers were put to the test. I could have recommended TV shows that would put anyone to sleep, but Winston was looking for more radical solutions. That's why Janet from Middlesbrough was to be found wearing a bra back to front and stuffed with tennis balls.

She's always tired and doesn't get any quality sleep because she snores. Very loudly. She's so noisy that husband Dave is forced to sleep on the sofa to escape the snoring.

The BBC packed her off to the Royal Brompton Hospital in London to find a cure. The bra was suggested to stop her lying on her back, which isn't good if you're prone to snoring. A new health regime was implemented. A snore pillow lasted only an hour. But a gum shield, worn over her front teeth to assist clear breathing, worked a treat. Janet got a good night's sleep.

In 99 per cent of all cases snoring can be cured. Other statistics you might like to recall to help you nod off include the fact that one in five motorway accidents in the UK are attributed to people driving when tired, it's not how long but the quality of your sleep that counts, and during the night, our brain produces a substance which makes us naturally drowsy (known in my house as the Richard and Judy effect).

We were invited to take tests along the way such as the Epworth rating to establish the quality of our sleep, the Horne-Ostberg test to discover if we were early bird or burn-the-midnight-oil types, and another to discover if our balance between life and work was right.

Rooms were redesigned, screaming toddlers that kept parents awake were tamed, and insomniacs turned into Rip Van Winkles thanks to the advice on offer.

All sorts of tricks were used to make milkman Les's body think it was daytime when it was really the middle of the night. Light boxes in his bedroom made it seem like dawn and he wore sunglasses from late afternoon to confuse his body (and make people in the street stare at him).

Unfortunately, Winston had to disqualify him for breaking the rules. Les quit his night job and no longer finds any problem sleeping. He's now planning early retirement in sunny Spain. We can all sleep soundly knowing he's cured.