I stayed in Birmingham last night and slept on a friend’s floor between Leftwing Idiot and our mate Chiv. They’d both DJed at the event last night. Leftwing Idiot asked how much I was likely to tic during the night. I couldn’t tell him because it’s been a while since I slept in the same room as anyone else. He knew I might tic a bit because I had the other day when I fell asleep watching telly with him.

I’ve always found getting to sleep the trickiest bit, even when my tics weren’t as bad. I tried to keep them in check to avoid disturbing Chiv and Leftwing Idiot. When I asked in the morning if I’d kept him awake, Leftwing Idiot laughed and said, “You moved around and made noises all night.” He added that hearing my tics without any interaction made it clear how involuntary they are.

I’ve never looked into the effects of Tourettes on sleep before so I had a root around on the Internet and found a couple of interesting looking research articles.