One of the symptoms I experience with my depression is insomnia. I am desperately tired all through the day, go to bed early and then wake up in the early hours with sleep frustratingly elusive.

Sleeping tablets just seem to make things worse and the whole "restful night-time routine" of no caffeinated drinks after noon, a relaxing bath, aromatherapy and a milky drink just before sleep just don't seem to be effective.

Diet seems to help a bit, and certainly the 5:2 intermittent fasting way of eating has been of enormous benefit. But it doesn't work all the time and the past couple of nights have seen me intimately acquainted with the dead of night. In fact, the first lines of Bill Hayley's Rock Around the Clock have been rather too appropriate.

I have to admit I have not yet tried hypnotherapy for it and that's definitely the next thing on the list.

So, rather than just lying there, with negative thoughts chasing each other like squirrels in my head, I tend to get up and do something (even this blog has been written at two in morning upon occasion).

Writing is great as it is something that (for me) is totally engaging. Reading can be good but my preference is for a comfortable book I've read before; it does not grip so hard that I miss the point where actually, I could go back to sleep. Sometimes I do sometime creative, like card-making or needlework (although, if your thing is woodwork with power drills, you may want to think through the whole neighbourliness issue).

My youngest daughter also suffers from insomnia and we discovered all night Roulette on one of the TV channels. That was helpful to watch together as the ball going round and round was soporific and, as we both invariably lost our imaginary bets, it had the added benefit of teaching her about the futility of gambling.

Experience has taught me that, if I lie in bed chasing sleep, it won't come until half an hour before the alarm goes off. If I get up and do something else for an hour or so, then, nine times out of ten, when I go back to bed, I'll drift off inside five minutes.

But I think I'm still going to buy that hypnotherapy CD.