We are rapidly approaching Midsummer and the nights are getting lighter and lighter. Here in Stockholm, it is still daylight at 10pm and it starts to get dark towards midnight. For 6 weeks or so, we experience so-called ‘white nights’, where the sun is below the horizon for less than 6 hours. This makes it bloody difficult to motivate yourself to go to bed and, once there, to get to sleep.
Mind you, this is nothing compared to the northern town of Kiruna in Sweden, where from the 27 May to the 16 July the sun never sets and they have months and months of white nights.
Have you ever seen the movie ‘Insomnia’ with Al Pacino? Based on a Norwegian film with the same name, he plays a cop from LA who goes to Alaska to solve a crime. As time goes on, he suffers more and more from insomnia due to the day-round light and starts to lose his grip on reality. This time of year, I start to feel a bit like Al Pacino.
On week days, when you need to get up for work, nights are spent battling with the bright chinks of daylight that pierce the window shades and shine like an aura around the bedroom door. Effective sleep time is reduced to a few hours and, heavy headed in the morning, you climb into the shower like a zombie to try to bring yourself to life.
So how to survive this period of sleeplessness?
There are a few options:
- Black-out blinds – sold amongst other places for a reasonable price at IKEA
- Blindfold – stolen amongst other places from airlines
- Sheet over head – not very comfortable and rather sweaty
- Brick up the windows – probably not approved by the local council, or the residents’ board
- Rain dancing – to try to conjure up dark clouds to block out the daylight
- Get up and do yoga – no, just kidding
- Drugs – always an option, but can bring on a whole new set of problems
- Lavender under the pillow – supposed to relax you, just makes me sneeze and the bedroom smell
- Take your bedding to the windowless bathroom and sleep in the bathtub – effective but tragic
Or alternatively, just suck it up and enjoy the white nights as an exotic natural Scandi-phenomenon. Reassure yourself that thankfully you don’t live in Kiruna, or Alaska.
And finally, philosophically remind yourself that this too will pass – and all too soon it will be day-round darkness.
Watching the Swedes 
This indeed must be quite a downside of living in Sweden. That’s one of the reasons I, as a blind person, think it’s not always that bad as people think not to have light perception. 😀 I was in Sweden (Stockholm and nearby areas ) only once at the end of June-beginning of July, with my family, and they were really struggling to sleep because of the sun and I felt for them because of that. I struggle with circadian rhythm a lot, but in Sweden I remember sleeping really really well every night.