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One night, some years ago, I awoke to a disturbance in the dark. As I lay in silence, the sheets around my chin, I wondered what had woken me.

I reached down for my cats, but they had abandoned my feet for the stillness of the couch.

I touched my husband on the arm but he was deep in sleep.

I listened intently for the whir of a mosquito, but the room was empty beneath the darkness…

So what was darting about in my sleep, plucking at the fraying edges of my dreams?

The intruder nudged the back of my skull and I suddenly saw it in all of its glory : number 3656.

It was the number I had counted to in my sleep.

The Peace Process

One of the greatest achievements in life is to develop a peaceful mind.

It is an ability to process all of the messages and chatter and white noise that we experience every day.

Some things, like an angry remark from a friend or a sliver of negative self-talk, can initially weigh heavily on our mind, but through careful planning and selective processing we can move beyond it, back to a place of peace.

Troubled sleepers, of which I have been one, will laugh at such folly and tell you that the processing never ends.

Often in the past I would wake exhausted, having engaged in nocturnal dream-games like a long, looping conversation with me, myself and I or categorising all of the events of my life into detailed process diagrams. The night, rather than a haven, was merely an extension of my day’s activities: counting, sorting, structuring, editing and so on.

I had to develop a barrier between myself and the day’s clutter.

By teaching myself a series of steps to filter out the disturbance, I was able to quieten my mind and achieve a peaceful night’s sleep.

Six Steps to Put Pillow Talk to Sleep

These are my six strategies for quietening my cerebral cortex:

1. Tune in to the Noise

This station is playing only for your listening pleasure. You need to fix upon the issue that is disturbing you and listen to its message. While you are avoiding it, it is keeping you off balance and on edge. Face up to it. Give it a name. Recognise its effect upon you.

2. Absorb the Lesson

The splinter in your sleep is usually there for a reason. If a lesson is waiting to be learned, then acknowledge it. You may not like what it teaches you, but acceptance is one of the first steps towards peace.

3. Create a Physical List

Get the junk out of your head. Out of sight is not out of mind in the case of looming lists. You need to respect your issues and take the time to write them down. When they are on paper - or preferably in a book with a cover that you can close - they are taken care of. Or at least until the morning when you have the energy to deal with them.

4. Do a Health Check

Be specific about what is simply clutter and what are legitimate concerns. When you are clear on what needs to be tackled, put it into a mental box and review all of the positive things in your life. Plan to fix the things that worry you, but don’t lose sight of all of the things you have already achieved.

5. Pit-stop Tasks

Agree that you will “down tools” on any unresolved issues or incomplete activities before you get into bed. If the steps above don’t give you any peace, then come to an agreement with your subconscious that you will tackle the outstanding tasks as soon as you wake up in the morning.

6. Delegate Your Worries

Sometimes we have to fall back on old cliques, like a problem shared is a problem halved. Talk to someone you trust about your sleepless nights and enlist them to be a sort of neutral territory between you and your worries. With your night clutter holidaying in Switzerland, you might just find that your mind quietens down enough for a few hours of respectable shut-eye.

Okay, so they may not be easy steps or a quick fix! You might have to work hard at adapting these strategies for your own life. Some self-analysis, a few hours of practice…

But what else is an insomniac going to do - take a nap and worry about it in the morning?