Daily life

What keeps you awake at night?

196 answers answered between 2008 and 2026 one of 25 in The Q&A

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

A long-running fixed question in The Guardian's weekly Q&A questionnaire.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

Add your answer

On the record

Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Read by field Everyone Science and medicine 1 Arts and letters 168 Politics and public life 8 Business and finance 8 Sport 10
Read by age Any age Before thirty 8 In their thirties 31 In their forties 40 In their fifties 45 In their sixties 38 Seventy and beyond 28
Order Earliest first Most recent Surprise me
Tony Judt Historian and essayist
My solution has been to scroll through my life, my thoughts, my fantasies, my memories, mis-memories, and the like until I have chanced upon events, people, or narratives that I can employ to divert my mind from the body in which it is encased. These mental exercises have to be interesting enough to hold my attention and see me through an intolerable itch in my inner ear or lower back; but they also have to be boring and predictable enough to serve as a reliable prelude and encouragement to sleep. It took me some time to identify this process as a workable alternative to insomnia and physical discomfort and it is by no means infallible. But I am occasionally astonished, when I reflect upon the matter, at how readily I seem to get through, night after night, week after week, month after month, what was once an almost insufferable nocturnal ordeal. I wake up in exactly the position, frame of mind, and state of suspended despair with which I went to bed—which in the circumstances might be thought a considerable achievement.
Recorded The New York Review of Books, 14 January 2010 issue; the first of a series of short reflections dictated during his illness, 14 January 2010 source ↗
Louis Walsh Irish music manager and television personality
The X Factor (wondering about song choices) and watching TV. I’m a night person, and don’t go to sleep until 3am or 4am.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 2 September 2017 source ↗
Griff Rhys Jones British actor and comedian
The next morning. It rarely turns out as bad as I think it’s going to be.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 30 December 2017 source ↗
Sandi Toksvig Danish and British broadcaster, comedian and writer
Bloody radiator keeps banging. I think it needs air releasing but I don’t have a bleeding key.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 3 March 2018 source ↗
Gloria Estefan Cuban-American singer and songwriter
When I feel that I am unprepared. Before a show I always have nightmares that I go out on stage naked.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 15 June 2019 source ↗
Mandy Patinkin American actor and singer
Not being at peace with myself, in spite of an ongoing lifetime effort to try to calm down and accept that, no matter what, I did the best I could.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 26 October 2019 source ↗
Kim Gordon American musician and artist
Worrying about my daughter, worrying about money.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 21 March 2020 source ↗
Robert Bathurst English theatre and television actor
Rats scurrying in the roof. I won the last war but it’s only a matter of time.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 6 June 2020 source ↗
kd lang Canadian musician
Inconsequential things like whether my basketball team, the Portland Trail Blazers, can get it together for the play-offs.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 22 May 2021 source ↗

1 answer from members

More on daily life