Paxman's Sleepless Torment

08 October 2007

His waspish tongue, incisive questioning and famously disdainful glances have given countless government ministers sleepless nights for years. But all the time it was their persecutor Jeremy Paxman who was having trouble getting off to sleep. The Newsnight rottweiler has suffered from depression and insomnia on and off for 25 years and reveals he has sought an endless number of cures. Alas, it has all been to no avail.

Speaking candidly about his condition, father-of-three Paxman, 57, one of the BBC's most popular and longest-serving presenters, tells me: "My pattern of insomnia is a classic symptom of depression. "I can go to sleep, but then I wake up in the middle of the night tossing and turning. "My working hours, of course, don't help — I don't get to bed before 1am on the days I am working. "I have tried everything. I have been to therapists, doctors, tried hypnotism, taken pills. You name it, I have tried it."

Brilliant Paxman, who was educated at Malvern College and St Catharine's College, Cambridge, says his latest sleep therapist came up with a surefire cure which meant following a specific and regular routine. He tells me at the launch of his friend Robert Harris's new novel The Ghost: "First of all, you have to go to bed at the same time every night and use an alarm clock to wake you up at the same time every morning — which is difficult for me because of my working hours. "The alarm clock has to face away from you, so that when you wake up at night you can't see what time it is — which would start you worrying that you've only had two hours sleep. "When you do wake up, you then have to get up and go to another room and do something — such as read a book or watch television — for half an hour. "Then you have to go back to bed and try to sleep again. If you don't, you have to repeat the procedure until you do."

So did the technique work? "Absolutely not," he says. "Nothing works with me except pills."

Source: Daily Mail 08/10/07