ONE of the worst things about getting older is the effort involved in getting a decent night’s sleep.

I used to have no problem nodding off, and once I did, I’d sleep like a log — I’ve never understood why people say sleep like a baby, in my experience they’re all die-hard insomniacs.

But now I spend the night tossing and turning, waking intermittently until about 6am, when my brain feels the need to get up, but my body screams ‘no, stay in bed!’ I don’t know whether this is tied into my ageing body clock, which now seems to chime every couple of hours during the night, sending me scurrying towards the toilet, my biological clock, which I'm sure must have stopped ticking by now, or my cat napping on the pillow, so that each time I turn over I get a mouth full of ginger fur.

Whatever the reason, it leaves me feeling shattered during the day — as if I’ve been up all night clubbing. I wouldn’t mind if I had — at least I’d have got something out of it.

So, in National Bed Month, I thought I’d put in a bit of effort to get to the root of the problem and find a cure.

Tapping a few details into Google, up pops a page of sleep tips for the over-50s that begins: ‘The older adult experiences numerous brief arousals in the night.’ Excuse me? I may wake up a lot, but certainly not with stirrings in my loins.

This must surely be referring to men — aren’t they supposed to think about sex seven million times a minute, or something like that?

Apparently, us over 50s also spend more time napping during the day, which can disrupt a night’s sleep.

I’m surprised by how many people do this — I remember some mothers at the primary school gates, yawning as they collected their children, having not long before emerged from their afternoon kip.

How anyone finds time amazes me. And sleeping in the daytime can leave you feeling groggy and disorientated.

A comfortable, supportive mattress would help. Ours is so bad, you have to curl your body around protruding springs.

Getting out in the fresh air doesn’t help me either. I spend far more time outside than in, but still get broken slumber.

Maybe I’m getting too much and would do better to stay indoors with the central heating on full.

Funny, but none of the tips mention the ago-old method of counting sheep.

I haven’t tried this for years, since slipping over in a farmer’s field at 3am and getting mud on my nightie, but I might give it another go.