Before we start, I just wanted to mention that I have a little bit of a cold. You may hear it in my voice. I just feel like I don't sound quite like I normally do. I think I sound like I've been smoking cigarettes. And hopefully my voice is back to normal by next week. So bear with me. Here is tonight's episode. There's a very old story, and it goes back to at least the 12th century, about a king who couldn't sleep. And so he sent for his storyteller, and he asked for a tale to help him drift off. And the storyteller told the king about a farmer who had just bought 2,000 sheep. And this farmer needed to get all 2,000 of them across a river. And all he had was a tiny boat that could carry only two sheep at a time. So across he goes with the first two, and back. And then across with the next two, and back. A thousand little trips. And the storyteller never finishes that story, because both he and the king fall sound asleep. And that, as far as anyone knows, is where counting sheep came from. And I've been thinking about that king. I think that king may have had ADHD. And I think it worked on this king because the storyteller put in just enough detail to hold his attention. It gave his busy mind something to do that led nowhere. If you have ADHD, or if your mind just runs fast and won't slow down when the lights go off, you probably know that plain old counting sheep won't put you to sleep. I could just count them. One, two, three, four. But your brain would probably be long gone by number six. Off chasing something more interesting. It's too dull. Your brain needs something a little more than that to sleep. And there's science behind that. It's called cognitive shuffling. And it was worked out by a cognitive scientist who was studying what actually happens in the mind in the last little while before we fall asleep. You notice that when a person drifts off, their thoughts don't stay orderly. Instead, the mind starts to get loose. The thoughts stop connecting to each other. They go random, scattered, that drifting, disconnected state. That is the doorway to sleep. Cognitive shuffling is just a way of feeding your mind a slow trickle of random unimportant things to picture. And your brain, given a stream of gentle nonsense to follow, can't think about tomorrow or work or school. Two things don't fit in the same space. And then the overthinking quietly stops. And this suits your kind of mind especially well, because it isn't asking you to empty your head or to stop thinking or to just lie still in the dark, giving your mind a job, a small, easy, mildly diverting job that happens to lead to sleep. And so that's what we're doing tonight. We're going to count sheep. But tonight, the sheep are going to come out one at a time. And each one is going to be a little different from the last. Just enough information to keep your mind a little occupied until sleep arrives. But first, as always, these episodes use relaxation techniques and hypnotherapy. So please make sure that you're somewhere safe to sleep. Ideally, your comfortable bed and not anywhere. You need to stay alert. And one more thing. This show is just me. There's no company behind it. There's no team. And it's become the thing I do all day, most days. I love it. If it's been helping you sleep and you're in a position to, the way to keep it going is the Snoozeville Sleep Club. And it's how the show stays alive. And I built in something that I think this audience especially will appreciate. On the members feed, all the episodes are sorted into collections. So when your mind won't stop at one in the morning, you're not scrolling and hunting. You just open the collection that fits and press play. And if that sounds useful, there's a link in my show notes. And if not, that's fine. Just stay right where you are. And keep listening. Because now it's time to get you settled. Let's start by making sure that you are comfortable. If you've been tossing and turning in your bed for a while, it might be a good idea to get up and shake out your sheets to make them cool and smooth again. And fluff up your pillow if you need to. Find the right spot in your bed, the right position, and the right place to rest your head. If you're on your side, you might want an extra pillow between your legs. Make sure that your back is happy, that your legs are loose, and your feet are warm. And we'll start with a few slow breaths. Nothing fancy. We're not going to count together. Just breathe in. Easy and full. And then let it out. Slowly. Taking longer with that exhale than you did breathing in. That's good. And again, a long, slow breath in. And then a nice, easy breath out. One last time. And this time, when you exhale, let your whole body sink. Everything feeling relaxed. Breathe in. And let it out. Slowly. A fast, busy mind like yours sometimes spends a lot of time in itself and not in your body. So it often misses what the body is feeling. Your shoulders may be tight. Your jaw clenched. And it's quite possible that you're not even aware of this tension. So let's move through your body and make sure it sets that tension down. We'll start with your face. The part of you that's worked hardest at holding an expression all day. Let the little muscles around your eyes and mouth become loose. And let your jaw become loose. Move down into your neck and shoulders. If your shoulders have been up somewhere near your ears, and for a fast, busy mind they often have, then let them drop. Now, all the way down. Feel that sense of relaxation moving down your arms. Your upper arms going heavy. Your elbows. Your forearms. All the way down to your hands. Let your fingers uncurl. Then let your chest soften as it rises and falls slowly with each breath. Let your back give its full weight to the mattress. All the way down your spine. Every vertebrae relaxing. Every muscle softening. And that feeling moves down into your hips. Your legs. Growing loose and heavy. Your thighs. Your knees. Your calves. All that restless energy that a mind stores in the legs. Draining away now. Down and out. And your feet. Let them fall open. Let them go still. And in this comfortable place, at the soft edges of your mind, I'd like you to imagine a field. It can look like the kind of field you'd see in a storybook. And imagine a fence. It can be a low one. Old gray wood. Running along the edge of a field in the last of the light. It is the end of the day. And the sun is low in the distant hills. And somewhere just out of sight, a small flock of sheep is starting to gather. In no hurry. The way sheep are never in a hurry. And they're waiting to come one at a time over the fence. While I talk to you. And all you have to do is listen. In your imagination, the first sheep is already making her way toward the fence. She's not in a hurry. She's moving the way sheep move when nothing is chasing them. She's a small one. Neat and sturdy. With a bright white face and dark round gentle eyes. Sheep have such calm eyes. But she has that look as if there's somewhere she's supposed to be. So she comes right up to the fence. And there's a little pause. And then she jumps over. She lands and gives herself a shake. And looks around for the others. Because a sheep never really likes to be the only one. She's a cheviot. The cheviot comes from the cheviot hills. On the border between England and Scotland. And there are records of cheviots going back to the year 1372. She's not a tall sheep. But she is a hardy one. She's built for bleak windswept hills. And if you kept a difficult rocky bit of hill country. This would be the sheep you want. And off she goes into the field. And she lowers her head to the grass. The next one is bigger than she was. And slower. A broad heavy set fellow ambling up. As though he has all the time in the world. Which tonight he does. Up to the fence. A pause. While he thinks about whether it's worth the effort. And over. He wanders in. And makes straight for the little cheviot. Because now there are two of them. And two is better than one. He's a Romney. The Romney comes from the Romney Marsh in the south of England. Low, wet, misty ground near the sea. So he does well in the damp. He doesn't mind wet feet. Or cold air. His wool is long and easy to spin. If you were a beginner learning to spin your own yarn. A Romney fleece is the kind they would hand you first. Down into the grass he goes. Close beside her. And another one is coming. She is the shaggiest thing you've ever seen. A thick blue-gray coat. And a soft white face peering out of the middle of it. She takes her time. Thinks about it. And then over. And then she goes to stand with the other two. She's a herdwick. From the Lake District in England. It's thought that the breed came over with Norse settlers more than a thousand years ago. And the name comes from an old Norse word. Meaning roughly. Sheep pasture. Herdwick lambs are born almost black. And then slowly over the first couple of years. Their coats lighten. To brown. And then to that soft blue-gray. There aren't a huge number of them. Even now. They're bound to their particular corner of the world. And they don't do well. Far from it. Down she settles in among the others. There are three of them now. A small woolly crowd in the near dark field. Warm against each other. Grazing quietly. More are coming. Well, this one's odd looking. He's got horns. Not two. But four. Two curving up. And two coming down. And his wool is patched. White with big dark brown watches. Like he's been splashed with paint. Up to the fence. A pause. And over. And in he goes. To join the others. This one is a Jacob. The Jacob is an old breed. Kept as much for how they look as for anything else. For those four horns and the patchy black and white fleece. For a long time. You'd mostly find them dotted about the parklands of big country estates. Kept as ornaments, really. Because they're handsome in a strange old-fashioned way. And spinners love a Jacob fleece. Because you can sort the white wool from the dark and spin them separately. Two colors from one sheet. He's a bit of a novelty. This one. And people are always pleased to see him. And here comes another. She's tiny, the smallest one yet, by a long way.A little fine-boned thing with short legs and soft brown eyes and a coat that isn't white at all, but a warm brown. She trots up quicker than the big ones did, pauses at the fence and then over, easily. And she hurries in to stand with the rest, glad to be among them.She's a Shetland from the Shetland Islands, right up at the top of Scotland, about as far north as you can go. Hard, cold, windswept little islands. And she's small because that's what it takes to get by up there.Her wool, though, is fine and soft, and it comes in more natural colors than almost any other sheep. Brown and greys and creams and near black, with old dialect names for every shade. It's the wool they used for the fine shawls.The one so soft and thin that you can supposedly draw the whole shawl through a wedding ring. She's a little treasure of a sheep, this one. And then the next.You would know this one anywhere. Big and strong, with a jet-black face and black legs, and no wool on his head at all, so the black stands out sharp against the white of the rest of him. He's a confident sheep. He walks like he owns the field, up to the fence, a pause, and over in one easy jump, and in he strides to join the others. He's a Suffolk. And if you picture a sheep in your mind, just a generic, ordinary sheep, there's a fair chance you're picturing something close to a Suffolk, because he is one of the most common breeds there is.Big and fast-growing and black- faced. He's what they call a terminal sire, which is a dull farming term that just means he's the father of an awful lot of lambs. He is a good, solid, unfussy sheep, the kind a commercial farmer relies on without thinking twice.And another is coming. This one looks older than the rest, older than any sheep you've seen somehow. Small and light on her feet, with a wary, watchful look.She approaches carefully, a long pause, and then over, quick and neat, and she goes to the far edge of the huddle near the others. She's a Soway, and she's just about the oldest, most primitive breed there is. A living leftover from the sheep that were kept thousands of years ago, before anyone bred them bigger, or woolier, or tamer.She comes from a tiny, uninhabited island out past the Hebrides. Soway is Norse for sheep island, and that's all the island ever was. Just sheep, and she doesn't even need shearing the way the others do.Her wool comes away on its own in the spring. There's almost nothing else like her left, a rare and ancient survivor. The small brown sheep, keeping her distance at the edge of the flock. There are seven of them now, a proper little flock, gathered together in the dark, warm against one another, their breath soft in the cool air, and a few more are still to come, and here comes another. This one is lean and long-legged, more lightly built than the others, with a narrow face, and oddly, an extra pair of little horns, and a long, coarse outer coat that hangs down over a softer one underneath. This is a desert sort of sheep.She picks her way to the fence, careful and neat-footed, the way an animal moves when it's used to dry, stony ground. There's a pause, and in among the others, she is a Navajo churro, and in a sense, she comes the longest way of any of them. Her people are the oldest domesticated sheep on the whole of the American continent.Her ancestors were carried across the ocean on Spanish ships some 500 years ago. They were brought into the deserts of the Southwest, into what is now New Mexico and Arizona, hard, dry, high country, and she thrives on it, where the damp country sheep never could. Her wool has a long, coarse outer coat over a fine, soft inner one, and it takes dye beautifully, and it's long been prized for weaving rugs and blankets.A hardy, sure-footed, desert loving sheep. There aren't many of her, and she's a breed that people work to look after, and the next sheep is fine-boned, elegant, with a pale, creamy fleece packed close and dense. She moves to the fence, and again there is a pause, and then over, lightly, and she joins the others.She's a Rambouillet, and she really is a bit of royalty in her way. She's descended from a flock of the fine wool Spanish Merinos, and back in 1786, the King of Spain made a gift of over 350 of them to the King of France, who kept them on a royal estate called a Rambouillet, which is where the breed gets its name. So somewhere behind this sheep, standing in a dark field, is a present from one king to another. More than 200 years ago, her wool is fine and soft. There are nine of them now, gathered close, together in the dark, a whole flock, warm and quiet, their sides rising and falling, and it's getting late, and that's the flock. All of them are in now, gathered together out there in the dark field, warm against each other, they're breathing slow and even.There's nobody left at the fence, nobody waiting to come over, just a field full of sheep, settling down for the night, and you can let go of the field now, you don't have to hold it anymore. Let the fence blur, and the grass, and the dark shapes of the sheep, and come back, quietly, to where you've been all along. Your bed, your pillow, the weight of your blankets over you, the warmth of your own body held by the mattress, heavy and still, and feel how good this is, to be here, warm and safe, at the end of the day, with nothing left that needs doing. This is the thing your body has been waiting for since morning, and your thoughts, the ones that were running so fast when you lay down, darting everywhere, never still. You might notice that they've slowed right down, because here's the thing about a mind like yours, those racing thoughts are a lot like a sheepdog, quick, and clever, and tireless, always circling, always chasing, always sure there's one more sheep to round up, and it's a wonderful thing, a mind like that, in the daylight, but sometimes, doesn't know when to stop, but even the sheepdog sleeps, at the edge of the field, curled up in the grass, nose tucked under, is the dog who brought all those sheep in, and he's fast asleep, his work is done, the flock is gathered, and there's nothing left to chase, his legs are twitching just a little, the way dogs do when it dreams, he's still hurting, somewhere in his sleep, still running after sheep, in a wide green field, that only he can see, but he's sound asleep, while he does it, and so will you be, any moment now, your own quick, clever, tireless mind, finally curling up, and letting go, still turning over its sheep, somewhere in the dark, but asleep, dreaming them, instead of chasing them, there's nothing left to round up tonight, the sheep are all in, the gate is closed, the field is quiet, and the dog is dreaming, and the whole dark countryside has gone to sleep, and you too, down into the warmth, and the dark, and the quiet, you're breathing slow, your body heavy, and you're busy, busy mind, finally at rest.