Something to keep you awake at night

Stuart Landsborough conducts a small experiment which may land him in big trouble.

I tried an experiment with my wife, but until now she knows nothing about it. I wonder what her reaction will be when I show her this article! Hopefully she will accept the result of the experiment I have done; however, like all believers in a solution they have come to accept, I wonder if she will somehow find a reason to discredit my 'discovery'.

Before I tell you of my experiment, I will tell you that I am a skeptic to such a degree that I find it difficult to accept any medical or alternative claim about some amazing cure without seeing a lot of back-up studies; that tends to eradicate all alternative claims!

My wife is a fellow sceptic, but like many or all of us, sometimes accepts certain claims with little evidence.

Since 1994 I have offered a large sum of money (now $100,000) for any person that can find a promissory note hidden within a hundred metres radius of a cabinet that is located at my business in Wanaka: Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World. As yet, although I have had seven serious challengers, none have won the challenge.

So, although I am not a scientist, I do have a history of some inquisitive inquiry. As I was the one that was testing my wife (without her knowledge) the testing cannot be claimed as )double-blind) but I hope the way I have done it is still valid as my wife had absolutely no knowledge of the testing on her.

So, now I come to the time when I explain the experiment. Have you noticed in the last few years how many people have decided that they should not have a cup of coffee after three in the afternoon as it keeps them awake when they go to bed? Well, a few years ago my wife became one of them. She decided that she was having sleepless nights but when she experimented with only having decaf after 3pm her nights' sleep much improved. Being a 'convert', she tries to encourage me to give up coffee in the evening even though she can see that I find it almost impossible to stay awake even after just having a coffee!

Luckily for this experiment, I am the one to make the evening hot drink for my wife and myself. Until two months ago, at 7.30 in the evening I made myself a cup of instant coffee and my wife a cup of decaf. My wife then usually stays up until about midnight when she goes to bed. Within three minutes she is fast asleep. Two months ago, without my wife's knowledge, I replaced her decaf with a standard strength instant coffee.

The first time I did it I was very worried that I would give her a disturbed night's sleep. But, luckily for me, and quite remarkably, my wife was asleep within the usual three minutes!

This has been going on now for the last eight weeks and my wife shows no signs of any altered sleep patterns.

I usually go to bed hours before my wife, but am such a light sleeper that I often wake up as she comes to bed and am aware that she continues to fall asleep almost instantly. Other nights when I do not wake up, in the morning I have had to find out how she slept without arousing her suspicions with questions such as: I slept well last night, how about you? And guessing that she slept well I would say: you slept well last night, and there would be no denial.

So, what do I make of what has happened? Obviously, for my wife, as I have just proved, having an evening coffee doesn't keep her awake after all. Therefore, when she started taking her last coffee at 3pm some years ago and immediately felt she had better sleeps because of it, does it mean that there was no real medical reason for her previous sleeplessness apart from it 'being-in-her-mind'? Isn't it amazing how just believing that not having late coffees can positively affect her sleep pattern instantly?

Perhaps coffee is much maligned.