David Wallechinsky - The Book of Lists

In another bizarre case, the theme from the show Growing Pains brought 27-year-old Janet Richardson out of a coma. She had been unresponsive for five days after falling out of bed and hitting her head, until, according to her sister, the TV theme ‘woke her up’.

There are about 50 recorded cases of foreign accent syndrome, in which people who have suffered strokes or other injuries adopt a new accent. For example, Tiffany Roberts of Florida suffered a stroke and then began speaking with an English accent. She even adopted such Anglicisms as ‘bloody’ and ‘loo’. Ms Roberts had never been to Great Britain, and was not a fan of British television shows.

Perhaps the oddest case concerned a Norwegian woman who fell into a coma after being hit on the head by shrapnel during an air raid in 1941. When she woke up, she spoke with a thick German accent. She was then ostracised by her neighbours.

Also known as ‘hair felting’, this condition causes hair to form a tangled mass. In a case reported in 1993 in the Archives of Dermatology , a 39-year-old woman’s hair fell out and was replaced by dry, coarse, curly hair which was so tangled that it was impossible to comb. It lacked knots, kinks or twists that would explain the tangling. The hairs themselves were strangely shaped: the cross-sections were triangular, grooved, or shaped like kidneys instead of circular. The usual solution to the condition is to cut off the solidified mass of hair. In one case, a woman from Indiana wanted to keep her hair, having spent 24 years growing it. After two and a half months of lubricating her hair with olive oil and separating the strands with knitting needles, her hair returned to normal.

Dietrich said that the only thing that lulled her to sleep was a sardine-and-onion sandwich on rye.

Whenever she stayed in a hotel, Lowell would hire five rooms — one to sleep in, and empty rooms above, below, and on either side, in order to guarantee quiet.

The aging Fields resorted to unusual methods to go to sleep. He would stretch out in a barber’s chair (he had always enjoyed getting haircuts) with towels wrapped around him, until he felt drowsy. Sometimes he could only get to sleep by stretching out on his pool table. On his worst nights, he could only fall asleep under a beach umbrella being sprinkled by a garden hose. He told a friend that ‘somehow a moratorium is declared on all my troubles when it is raining’.

Dumas suffered from terrible insomnia, and after trying many remedies, he was advised by a famous doctor to get out of bed when he couldn’t sleep. He began to take late-night strolls, and eventually started to sleep through the night.

As a teenager, Garland was prescribed amphetamines to control her weight. As the years went by she took so many that she sometimes stayed up three or four days running. She added sleeping pills to her regime, and her insomnia and addiction increased. She eventually died of a drug overdose.

Bankhead suffered from severe insomnia. She hired young homosexual ‘caddies’ to keep her company, and one of their most important duties was to hold her hand until she drifted off to sleep.

Kafka, miserable with insomnia, kept a diary detailing his suffering. For October 2, 1911, he wrote, ‘Sleepless night. The third in a row. I fall asleep soundly, but after an hour I wake up, as though I had laid my head in the wrong hole.’

His insomnia cure was a shot of cognac in a glass of milk.

Marx first began to have insomnia when the stock market crashed in 1929 and he lost $240,000 in 48 hours. When he couldn’t sleep, he would phone people up in the middle of the night and insult them.

An irritable insomniac, Twain once threw a pillow at the window of his bedroom while he was a guest in a friend’s house. When the satisfying crash let in what he thought was fresh air, he fell asleep at last. In the morning he discovered that he had broken a glass-enclosed bookcase.

Do not use these cures without consulting your health practitioner, as every body is different.

• DRINK A CUP OF CAMOMILE TEA, unless you have an allergy to plants in the ragwort family.

• TAKE THE DIETARY SUPPLEMENT MELATONIN. In the UK Melatonin is a prescription drug; in America it is available at wholefood stores and pharmacies. It is widely considered an effective and safe sleep aid.

• TAKE THE AMINO ACID GABA. This safe sleep aid can cause some people to itch the way the B-vitamin Niacin does. Most people, however, find Gaba very soothing.

• A MUG OF HOT MILK WITH HONEY AND/OR A FEW DROPS OF BRANDY. Though health experts argue, this is a time-honoured remedy which may be effective because it is so comforting.

• TO NAP OR NOT TO NAP? In certain countries, like Mexico and Italy, napping is a part of life, and seems to be healthy. In America, napping is often regarded as weak or lazy. Naps are usually recommended to be not over two hours maximum, and if you do nap, the important thing is that it be regular.

• DOZE, REST AND MEDITATE. If you can’t fall asleep, these practices are highly restorative for our brains and bodies.

• MORNING AND EVENING RITUALS. Do you like to read when you wake up, or before bed? Sew buttons? Play solitaire? Whatever you do, it has to be regular.

• TAKE CALCIUM, MAGNESIUM AND POTASSIUM. These sleep aids, found at pharmacies and wholefood stores, are both soothing and can stop ‘restless leg syndrome’, which keeps millions of people awake. You can also rub organic balms into your legs.

• AVOID STIMULANTS SUCH AS TEA AND COFFEE IN THE EVENING — unless: you’re used to an after-dinner coffee and it doesn’t bother you. Never disrupt a schedule that works.

• FIND OUT IF YOU HAVE SLEEP APNOEA. Overweight people, or those with sinus problems, may have ‘sleep apnoea’, a term describing cessation of breath during the night, usually accompanied by heavy snoring. Consult your health practitioner, because there are cures and sleep apnoea prevents you from getting the levels of REM sleep we all need to function healthily.

• EAT POTATOES, WARM OR ROOM TEMPERATURE, BEFORE BED. Many studies show this to be a wonderful insomnia cure, as are a single candy or pasta. Other studies argue that one should not eat anything three hours before sleep.

• USE WHITE NOISE. Boxes are available that produce what is called ‘white noise’, said to be highly effective for some. Alternatively, tapes of tides or soft sounds of nature can send you to sleep.

• AVOID ANY STRENUOUS EXERCISE THREE HOURS BEFORE BED. Studies have shown that this is the wrong time for aerobic exercise, and will keep you awake.

• DON’T GO TO SLEEP WITH AN ARGUMENT UNSETTLED. American comedienne Phyllis Diller is often credited with this bit of wisdom, but in truth it is as old as the hills. Do all you can to make up your fight before sleeping, or at least one of you is likely to have insomnia or even nightmares.

Activity Calories per hour

1. Making mountains out of molehills 500

2. Running around in circles 350