I don't think we realise when we are happy. There are very few times I can recall actually taking stock and noting that at that precise moment I am feeling joyful - it's generally more of a retrospective thing, a state which we are able to reference by contrast to the times when we are feeling down. "Ah, remember when we went to that rock festival, got high and danced naked? Happy times....!", or "I was happier being a size 12 and having waistbands that didn't leave weals around my gut....", thereby implying that there is some contrast to our current emotional state.

You don't often stop and pause to think, do you, when you're having a fit of the giggles or celebrating a promotion or being congratulated on an academic achievement, 'Wow! I am REALLY happy right now!'? You just don't need to, they all accumulate into a super-pool of good vibrations to offset the troughs of negativity and plateaux of the mundane.

I'm not the soundest sleeper. In fact, if the constant complaints of my partner are anything to go by, It's fair to say that I'm a “bloody nightmare” to sleep next to. Recently I've taken to trying Nitol, which is a bit of a con, I think, as the instructions tell you that it's impossible to over-dose on them. As far as I'm concerned, if anyone's selling medicine which can't be abused, it can't possibly do any good.

But sleep is where it's at. Sleep is the new meditation, so I've heard. Modern doctors are prone to discuss “quality of sleep” just as much as “quality of life”, and it's becoming more common to hear that people are finding it difficult to get as much down-time as they feel they deserve.

Now that the festive time is behind us (at least until September, when the shops will deck their halls with crimson holly once more) I think it’s as good a time as any to write a few words to put the subject to bed for a while.

Christmas probably divides even more people along the love it or loath it line than Hillary Clinton, so I realise that one or two of you will be tutting that I’ve even mentioned the prickly subject once more.

Well, thanks 2007. It's been jolly spanking good fun knowing you. For me at least, it's not been a bad year. But I find myself entering 2008 with more resolve than ever to "do something about my fitness".

This won't be the first time I've made New Year's Resolutions, and it most certainly won't be the first time when I break them. But as part of my on-going midlife crisis, I've finally acknowledged that I'm in pretty awful shape and that I need to do something about it as a matter of urgency.

Not exactly what you would expect from a religion based on love and trust, but it is true.

Many Christmases ago, when I was small and I used to go to Sunday school at the local Methodist Church where my mother was the organist, one Christmas Day I was asked to choose my favourite toy to take to church.

I've just had a full blown, head-in-the-hands, hide-under-the-duvet-and-cry sort of mid life crisis. It didn't last long, but while it did, I lost all sense of perspective and felt worse than I have in years.

As you can imagine, this is a deeply personal experience that I wouldn't even feel comfortable talking to my best friends about. So I thought it would make sense to share it with the entire online world. This piece had been deleted because I had an attack of the jitters after I posted it. Anyway, due to public demand it's all here now.