Tonight the Olympics will come to an end, but I cannot say that I’ll miss the games. It’s been too distant, too far off, too Zika-fuelled. Plus no television channel was ever showing the games bar for RAI Due, which only showed Italian athletes to the soundtrack of emotional running commentaries hailing all Italians as “bravissimi” heroes, even if they placed last.

It was a completely different matter four years ago, when the Olympics were held in Britain. We were hooked all day long then, and when not watching we were out flexing our muscles and eagerly keeping fit: a friend of mine, after watching the lake races, rented a canoe in Mellieħa and rowed all the way to Comino, for a whole fortnight. Gym memberships on the island went up. My girl friends organised fast walking stints in the evening and I even bought a set of weights and I huffed and I puffed the second I rolled out of bed.

Not this time round though. This year I did not feel Olympian at all. While jogging in the morning, I was not imagining myself a Usaina Bolt. Oh no, all I could think of was the bed I left behind and the glorious sleep I could be having if I was not running around this never-ending track. Wail. Wail.

As it happened, last week, the Santa Marija week, was the perfect time to write about sleep, which I’ve been wanting to do for a long while, because I keep finding myself at dinner table conversation where the question “how many hours do you sleep?” is always floated about.

It is the new ‘what time do you finish work?’ No one is interested in work hours anymore, now we want to know if we win the sleep battle. The rules are such: the less hours you sleep the more medals you win.

Of course, I don’t even qualify for a consolatory bronze. “Eight hours” is my standard, unheroic reply.

“Eight hours!? Maaa, how lucky,” I am often told.

Which can also mean, “illalu how lazy you are”/“maybe you should check with the doctor?”/“my life is more interesting than yours”/“are you a toddler or what?”, depending on who is saying it.

I love my beauty sleep. I’d sleep nine to 10 hours if I could

Do I really care? No. Because I love my beauty sleep. I know someone who sleeps only four hours. She goes to bed at 1am and wakes up at 5am. Then stays perfectly still in bed, eyes wide open, till 6am so as not to wake up her husband. The minute the clock strikes six, she throws off the sheets and jumps into super action. Bounce, bounce, and off she goes firing energy for the next 20 hours. God, even writing about this makes me want to lie down and have a nap.

Luckily, most of my friends love a lie-in. “I’d sleep nine to 10 hours if I could. During school days it’s impossibl, but I try to make up for it at weekends and in summer. I’m afraid that when it comes to sleep I still crave it as much now as in my teenage years,” says one.

“I need eight hours not to be grumpy, which means I often go to bed 10ish – unless I’m hooked on to a TV series. In which case one more episode becomes three more episodes, and Argh! Panic! Only six hours sleep,” says another.

Another friend just went to a resort in Sicily where they have Japanese tiles on the wall which promote healthy, relaxed sleep. “Ecocarat tiles: we have to get them to Malta girls,” she Whatsapped us.  The good news is that we are on the right side of the pillow, as it were. Getting less than six hours sleep a night increases risk of early death by 12 per cent, according to a recent study by scientists at Surrey University.

Not sleeping releases hormones that increase stress levels, speed up the heart rate and raise blood pressure, which can cause diabetes, obesity and heart disease. It can also impact attention, concentration and memory and is linked to Alzheimer’s disease.

The British Sleep Council said: “It’s a myth that older people need less sleep. Middle-aged people need the same amount of sleep.” Applause!

Now, in fact the UK government is running a campaign to encourage people to sleep more (could it be a clever Theresa May ploy to get people overcome their Brexit trauma?) and is stressing that it’s as important as eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

Diabetes, obesity and heart diseases… does this ring a bell? Maybe this is the solution to curb Malta’s rise of chronic fatal diseases.

So bring on the springy mattress, the fluffy pillows, the crisp, fresh summer sheets. Let’s see that sleepy smile and let’s purr with contentment as we doze off.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti