If you're an insomniac like me, you know that those long nights tossing and turning in bed can seem to last forever sometimes; 

Perhaps you can't switch your mind off from thinking about the day you've had, or the day ahead, or all those other things of varying degrees of importance that plague the mind.

Lying there, you can feel useless, like you're not able to do anything positive of value until the day comes...
... But what if simply lying in bed could be made to produce something real, and positive which could have a valuable impact on your day?

On just such a sleepless night I got to thinking about the springs in my bed for some reason, and how many times they compress and decompress over the course of a night- especially if you're tossing and turning.

We spend a fair portion of our lives in bed if we have a healthy sleep pattern... some eight hours a night is considered the average, but even five hours is a long time.  So roughly speaking, a third of your life is spent in bed, and all the energy you spend moving around on your matress is wasted energy.

So why not use this as an opportunity to capture some of that energy?

In a watch or clock, the winding of the mechanism stores energy in the watch springs which, once wound, slowly release that energy mechanically to make the watch work, and the bed matress in principle could be no different, if a mechanism could be attached to the bed springs to capture that energy you lose through the compression and release of the springs when you are lying on the matress and moving about, you could wind the mechanism, which could then, periodically, release, and drive a dynamo or motor to generate a small trickle current.  This could be used to charge a small battery or device such as a mobile phone, MP3 player, or maybe even a laptop.

Sleeping then woulld not only have the benefit of recharging your own batteries ready for the day, but some of your gadgets and gizmos too!

And it's worth considering how much energy another vigorous bedroom activity could generate (you could attempt to charge a phone in record time!!!!! ha ha ha!!!)