simont | (no subject)

Last night I found myself in the rather strange position of hoping to be unable to sleep properly.

I occasionally have mild insomnia. I've noticed over the last few months that it tends very strongly to be on Sunday nights, making me even more zombie-like than one would expect on a Monday morning. Last week I mentioned this to Owen, and he pointed out that on Sunday evenings I usually eat Chinese takeaway with the Gallery, and that my insomnia might be a reaction to something in the food (probably MSG).

As it happens, Gareth was away this weekend, and since yvesilena and the_alchemist were having a party on Sunday night, the usual gathering didn't happen in the usual way and I went to that instead. So I ate non-Chinese food to see what would happen to my sleep. And since (of course) I really want it not to be Chinese food that gives me insomnia, I was rather hoping that I'd have trouble sleeping as usual.

In fact, I did sleep better, but on the other hand the whole of the rest of my Sunday routine was disrupted as well, so this hardly points the finger conclusively at my diet. Next week I may try changing just the food, and see if that helps.

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Better plan - eat chinese on a night that isn't a sunday. This is still a good test of whether eating chinese affects your sleeping abilities, but results in more chinese, not less :-)

True. Although since the ultimate aim of the exercise is to be able to sleep properly on Sunday nights, I'm generally in favour of tests which potentially actually demonstrate this ability. It's one thing to induce insomnia on another night and conclude that in theory I therefore ought to be able to banish Sunday-night insomnia by the following means, but I'll still need to try it out for real the next Sunday, so I might as well go straight to that stage :-)

Anyway, I don't object too much to missing one or two Chinese meals in the cause of science. It won't seriously piss me off unless I find out that it is what's causing the insomnia, and have to stop eating Chinese on a longer-term basis...

Not all Chinese food has MSG in it. And if you do find out you can't eat it either, we could go round and find out if there are any places that sell Chinese food without MSG, because I'm too scared to ask on my own and I haven't had Chinese food in years.

Sounds like a good idea to me. (Although I read somewhere that asking this sort of question isn't guaranteed to get a useful answer anyway: at least some places allegedly feel that if saying "we don't use MSG" will make you buy their food then that's a sufficient reason to say it, and if you collapse the next day then hey, they've already got your money. But I suppose one can but try.)

YES. This makes me really annoyed. Fortunately I can spend two hours over a meal, and my MSG reaction takes about an hour and a half to kick in. :D

Have you considered the possibility that Dr Who stops you sleeping because your inner 6-year-old is scared by unconvincing monsters? ;-)

C. (back for Whooooooo on Sunday, finally!)