Yorkshire Tea PlayStation and Xbox controllers now available

Robbo-92 wrote:

Dual wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:Do they do a blue one for Decaf? That's my weapon of choice.

Have you tried their Bedtime Brew? I've got a mild addiction to it.

I'm really not a fan of their decaf offering, its dearer but the Clippers decaf is so much better in my opinion, go for a sleepy variant of Clippers too

KK wrote:Depending on how many they've made, it's the kind of thing I could see increasing in value.

You could well be right, I'm still not going to spend £150 on the off chance they go up in value, even then I very much doubt it'll ever be worth vastly more than the asking price.

I have clipper sleep tea as part of my routine, not a 100% certain but together with some other stuff it can properly knock me out.

Sadly sleep hygiene is 90% part of it. There are no hacks.

As a mild tea drinker, I used to drink so much until I realised how the caffeine builds up. Allergic really, never done coffee except one episode where I was basically bouncing off the walls and crashing endlessly.

As for the controller, this is a nonsense.

Green Gecko wrote:I have clipper sleep tea as part of my routine, not a 100% certain but together with some other stuff it can properly knock me out.

Sadly sleep hygiene is 90% part of it. There are no hacks.

As a mild tea drinker, I used to drink so much until I realised how the caffeine builds up. Allergic really, never done coffee except one episode where I was basically bouncing off the walls and crashing endlessly.

As for the controller, this is a nonsense.

I'm caffeine free tea from 2pm ish, so gives me a nice 7 ish hours off the caffeine before I'm going to bed (well when I have work the next day), what else do you as part of your routine out of interest? My sleep varies quite a lot sadly.

Robbo-92 wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:I have clipper sleep tea as part of my routine, not a 100% certain but together with some other stuff it can properly knock me out.

Sadly sleep hygiene is 90% part of it. There are no hacks.

As a mild tea drinker, I used to drink so much until I realised how the caffeine builds up. Allergic really, never done coffee except one episode where I was basically bouncing off the walls and crashing endlessly.

As for the controller, this is a nonsense.

I'm caffeine free tea from 2pm ish, so gives me a nice 7 ish hours off the caffeine before I'm going to bed (well when I have work the next day), what else do you as part of your routine out of interest? My sleep varies quite a lot sadly.

I stop drinking normal tea by 6pm.

I've struggled with sleep phase disorder / night owl / insomnia (or when really little nightmares) for most of my life. I take an antihistamine to reduce inflammation and anxiety possibly caused by that and which has a sedative side effect. So I deliberately take that at night together with a complimentary (very low dose) psychoactive one for anti-depressants that also treats anxiety and mild depersonalisation, that is sedative as well. My SSRI I take in the morning because it has a mild awakening side effect but I have recently halved that (not really relevant but I am happy to have reduced my medication after a very long time).

So unfortunately I rely on external stuff. I've been recommended melatonin a bunch of times though.

I also try to go for a very fast paced walk at least once per day, and I'll make up some random gooseberry fool to do, like getting some sea air, or visiting a shop, or getting some kind of supply for some thing I think about but never get around too. Which maybe means I spend more money than I have to but, I see it as the same cost as going to a gym or whatever and I get a treat / "problem solved" (I then never use the thing ) sort of endorphin. This is a brain hack because I typically always think I need a reason to go outside, as in my youth I was fairly routine oriented and had to "go somewhere and do a thing". Just exercising on its own doesn't really interest me.

I generally try to avoid blue light/screens or endless notifications but fail most of the time because I stay up late working in my business (and Windows Night Light is disabled as this strawberry floats with colour perception in my art/design work). At least I don't have monitor on 100% brightness and I generally always dim screens. I don't use my smartphone at all.

I really recommend either getting rid of the smartphone entirely (which is as easy as turning the thing off and semi permanently putting it away somewhere except for when you need it or travel) or banning it from the bedroom, at least.

Most recently in the mornings even if I've gone to bed any time of the night I still get up again a 7:30am and have tea and muesli (oats so slow release carbohydrate) or at least a snack, as it's often more important when you get up than when you go to sleep - even if you go to sleep again or nap later. You have to learn what your sleep cycles look like. This helps establish a baseline circadian rhythm even if you feel gooseberry fool at first, and then you can build on going to bed a bit earlier every day.

For a while I used a fitbit to track my sleep which gave me some really useful data including wakefulness. I only stopped wearing it because the strap broke so I need to sort that out! It woke me up with a slow pulsing vibration which was much better than being suddenly woken by an alarm. Speaking of alarms, I use three different types.

For active mind states despite bed time I try to play a game with a lot of text in it, narrative/story elements, or a simple puzzle type game (including kind of puzzling in Tears of the Kingdom), something I've played before. I avoid action games, FPS, shooters or anything like that. Just slow paced stuff.

I also might watch a video from a podcaster, guru, expert type of thing to learn some stuff so I've "done a thing" and can find myself passing out whilst watching another 5 minutes, just 5 more minutes to cover this last point etc, and then I eventually put the Switch down (I use for YouTube) and I'm gone.

Something worth remembering is that sleeping is a falling outcome. Nobody ever in history has remembered when they fall asleep, because thinking about falling asleep will never put you to sleep. That's why we call it falling asleep. You have to do pretty much anything else besides trying to fall asleep. Unfortunately it's only once you've internalised this paradigm at a very low level does "going to sleep" anxiety stop. That's what I mean about sleep hygiene.
With ADHD and a busy mind and hypersensitivity (autism) it's incredibly hard for me to maintain consistent sleep so instead having little control over those things I have to adjust my attitudes around it and depend somewhat on external things.
You don't have to use prescription meds, there are loads of things that can induce a drowsy state but not powering through that (as is our intuition during the day) and calming the mind is the hardest thing by far.

I spent a year learning meditation as well most notably the body scan technique, noting technique, and breathwork.
It's tough to stick at it but once you've trained the brain and had the positive feedback loop of consistently practising the meditation techniques, it sticks. I used Headspace for this which I would recommend.
You don't need to keep the subscription and you keep those skills forever as long as you practice them. That's a lot of better sleep and better calm.

Oh and I sleep with a weighted blanket, which helps with my restless leg syndrome. It basically weighs the muscles down and gives the impression of being held by something, but it's also subtly relaxing the muscles with light pressure (it contains loads of glass beads). A good quality bed is obviously necessary, I have a Mirapocket 1200 pocket spring Silentnight bed and I also use a butterfly shape memory foam/tencel pilow to sleep on my back or side without resulting neck pain.

On a good day I'll get 6-8 hours of sleep and on a bad day I'll at least get say 2+ sleep cycles requiring a nap or earlier bed time the next day. If I need to catch up on sleep or rest aching/damaged muscles or nerves from work or posture/MSK issues then I might sleep 9 to 12 hours on the odd occasion.

I basically never scold myself for sleep. Like, I don't really care what is a "normal" sleep to be honest. I know one thing for certain: if you sleep more, you live longer, you are healthier and you are considerably less likely to develop mental health problems or behave in such a way that you strawberry float up other aspects of your life. So all those performative arseholes whom boast about only needing 4 to 6 hours of sleep... yeah good luck with that, and I wonder what the truth of that is. How do you behave around other people behind closed doors, when the mask is off, and how sustainable is that... I can tell you one thing. It isn't.

There a lot I want to achieve in my life in 1 never mind several lifetimes so sleep is important to me. I don't get hung up on it and it's nobody else's business how much sleep I actually get versus how long I'm in a particular room in my house for (which is meaningless).

One other thing, basically never "work" (or even do chores besides what's necessary) in the same space in which you sleep. A sleep space needs to be about relaxing or sleep, and that's all. Use another room for anything else.

Not always possible in bedsits/dorms/uni etc which sucks but it definitely matters.

Green Gecko wrote:....

There is a lot there, and although I did read it all, I might have missed something at this early hour so apologies in advance -

Have you tried a white noise machine? I have found one of these, combined with cutting out caffeine (never drank coffee, but would drink gallons of tea every day) made a significant difference to my anxiety at night.

PlayStation version has now sold out. Coming to an eBay near you soon for £300…

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:....

There is a lot there, and although I did read it all, I might have missed something at this early hour so apologies in advance -

Have you tried a white noise machine? I have found one of these, combined with cutting out caffeine (never drank coffee, but would drink gallons of tea every day) made a significant difference to my anxiety at night.

I didn't mention it, but yes. I use a google speaker to play either rain sounds or ocean sounds every night;- and when my partner is/was snoring I also use earplugs (although reducers not plugs or my tinnitus goes absolutely nuts and there's a slight risk of me never waking up - it also defeats the purpose of white noise).

I've been doing that for about 15 years. Apart from a brief stint on a sleep medication (just 2 weeks as I was going a bit mental) when I was 19 or so, I think that was the first thing I ever tried.

... Except it wasn't. I used to listen to audiotapes. I tried those again in my 20s but the tape machine either ate the tapes or the expensive one I got started making a screaming sound in the middle of the night

I did think about Robbo saying that cut out tea/caffeine from 2 pm though. Around 6pm today I had a chai instead. As it's cold and miserable so I can't do without the hot drinks.

Need to get more decaff actually so maybe if its cheap I'll try the Yorkshire stuff.

It's fantastic to be talking about sleep hygiene in a topic about tea themed Xbox controllers. I don't even have an Xbox at the moment (just OG).

I'm not too good for branded tat but £150 is ridiculous!

Green Gecko wrote:

kazanova_Frankenstein wrote:

Green Gecko wrote:....

There is a lot there, and although I did read it all, I might have missed something at this early hour so apologies in advance -

Have you tried a white noise machine? I have found one of these, combined with cutting out caffeine (never drank coffee, but would drink gallons of tea every day) made a significant difference to my anxiety at night.

I didn't mention it, but yes. I use a google speaker to play either rain sounds or ocean sounds every night;- and when my partner is/was snoring I also use earplugs (although reducers not plugs or my tinnitus goes absolutely nuts and there's a slight risk of me never waking up - it also defeats the purpose of white noise).

I've been doing that for about 15 years. Apart from a brief stint on a sleep medication (just 2 weeks as I was going a bit mental) when I was 19 or so, I think that was the first thing I ever tried.

... Except it wasn't. I used to listen to audiotapes. I tried those again in my 20s but the tape machine either ate the tapes or the expensive one I got started making a screaming sound in the middle of the night

I did think about Robbo saying that cut out tea/caffeine from 2 pm though. Around 6pm today I had a chai instead. As it's cold and miserable so I can't do without the hot drinks.

Need to get more decaff actually so maybe if its cheap I'll try the Yorkshire stuff.

It's fantastic to be talking about sleep hygiene in a topic about tea themed Xbox controllers. I don't even have an Xbox at the moment (just OG).

That's the one I drink now, and it's "pretty ok". I completely quite caffeine about 6 months ago, had the worst headache in the world (TM) for about 48 hours but it's been plain sailing and better sleep since then.

My wife tried to quit about 2 weeks later (to minimise the amount of tea caddies we need), but she was unable to get past the awful headache stage. She has regular tea until midday and switches over to decaf after that. It's made a big difference for her also.

Re. White noise not making soothing sounds (screaming tapes etc), if I position my white noise machine in a particular place in the bedroom and set it to one of the specific fan sounds, every 30 seconds or so it sounds like someone is wheezing in my ear.

Acoustics are mental.

In my case I think it was just the mechanism or bands in the machine going nuts. It was this really particular scream/whining sound that gave my partner the proper willies, I would be pretty much passed out and then have to become conscious to this thing doing the total opposite of what I had got it for. Oh strawberry float sorry it's doing it again lol.

Well it's still fine for listening to tapes and recording to them (which is why I got it, part nostalgia, part production - tapes are a thing now, part I have quite a few old guitar lesson tapes etc). It just randomly does that after a little while, so you would think it had stopped before it starts again. A shame because it has a rare headphone socket and decent amp so it was a good distraction free thing to not use a smart device.

Not exactly helpful.

I struggle to imagine quitting tea, and I'm altogether unsure if I drink it for the caffeine. I may well just enjoy hot drinks, or hydration (of course this makes me weird as everyone I know HATES hydration). We'll see... Appreciate the encouragement.

Honestly, I have drunk tea every day of my life since I was a toddler (in a bottle and everything apparently), I was shocked to find that the decaf was (for me) still very much "tea".

And sorry, but the screaming-tape-when-just-nodding-off thing really has made me

Same here, always had to bring my mum two mugs of tea every morning, my brother drank it too until it stained his teeth... I never really thought about why I drank it.

And in school where you have a day learning about tea. You never really think of it as a drug that's kind of messed up.

Sadly the screaming tape player is now in a stack of unconnected hi-fi separates in the spare room. Shame because it actually sounds really good (nice analogue sound) with good tapes. Got it on eBay, decent Denon one, bet the bastard knew about it as well .

It was my second attempt because the first one (a Marantz) just didn't read tapes at all.

Weirdly reminds me of the time my mate bought an Xbox off eBay back in college and it came with a DVD of really awful British porn in it. So of course we watched it. I swear these people are just pranksters but you have to see the funny side of it.

I'll fix it eventually.

It's like one of those screaming letters in Harry Potter or something.

This thread is far better than it deserves to be thanks to your efforts

Thanks for the very in depth posts GG, I certainly don't seem to suffer (on a consistent basis anyway) from falling asleep as much as you, although I still think taking the best part of probably half an hour is much longer than the average? I blame my brain for dredging up random memories from years ago where it suddenly thinks "oh you could have done that loads better" and then it's just stuck in my head, going round in circles before I eventually nod off. Since my shift pattern changed with covid I've never been as much of a heavy sleeper as I was prior, once I was asleep that was it till the alarm went off, but now I wake (for a very short amount of time) probably 2 or 3 times most nights

I will say that cutting out the caffeine from 2pm (still need a proper cup of Yorkshire tea with my dinner ) about a month ago has made it a bit better, I do suffer from tinnitus a little as well, so maybe a white noise machine might help with that?

I would certainly try it. It really helped me.

I'll look into one, dare say most new ones have a time function so you can just set it for an hour or so? In the hope that you'll be asleep once the hour is up.

Yea, I set mine up for 2 hours. Thing is, I often wake up needing a wee in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep until I turn it (the white noise machine before this get no-contexted) back on. And it sounds bloody loud when you have not been around any noise for a period of time.