When people’s lives get busy, the first thing they cut back on is sleep. Working mothers have to juggle a job, the kids, the chores, and a husband that can snore the siding off the house.

Teens want to stay up later and later because they feel they’re adults and they like to watch movies with a chance of some skin (I thought One Million Years BC was hot), mind numbing but required watching of music videos, info commercials, and really  early morning evangelists. (I remember some really white guy with a white beard, wearing a white straw hat and white suit, sitting in the middle of the stage and talking about the Bible between slow drags of his cigar, and the audience would respond, “Sir, yes sir” when he asked what they thought after he told them what to think).

Besides feeling tired and dragging your still asleep butt around and downing coffee by the pot (you only really rent a coffee), poor sleepers are sick more often, have more accidents at work, and have more automobile accidents.

“Driving across the country with two other guys, each would take a turn driving while the others would sleep seemed like a good plan until all three awoke to the sound of crashing and bashing as the car ploughed through a corn field.” (Dang, Buba)

Getting a good night’s sleep has to be given a higher priority in everyone’s life, right up there with daily exercise, eating right and clean underwear. As most adults don’t get enough sleep through the week, it will take more than sleeping in Sunday morning a few hours to correct it. (This actually makes thinks worse).

If you search the web there are all kinds of people who have the solution to your insomnia. Get out your credit card, download their ebook and the answer will be revealed. I guess I’m not as big an expert as these types, but I don’t think there is one solution to this common problem. One thing may work, or you may have to try a few or even a boat load.

This blog is presented in three parts. The first part will cover some background information such as the definition of insomnia, categories of sleep disorders, why we sleep, what happens when we sleep, the sleep cycle, dreaming and how much sleep you need. The second part will cover where you sleep, your sleep environment, what you consume, your mental outlook, how you relax, your lifestyle and other factors. The third part is a brief overview of the meatier sleep problems and will cover sleeping pills, medical problems, medications, drugs and stimulants, depression, fatigue, sleep apnea, cataplexy, narcolepsy, bruxism, somniloguy, somnambulism, nocturnal myoclonus, night terrors and sleep clinics. If that doesn’t sound like fun, try a car battery and nipple clips.

I dragged myself upstairs to bed at 7:30pm. I had been tossing and turning for so many nights before that my insipid self-babble now wasn’t making any sense to even me. My sleep problems were wearing me down.

I can gauge the quality of my sleep from the night before by my Don King having-a-bad-hair-day look in the morning, or to the sheets of my bed having been pulled out from their hospital corner beginnings to the twisted train wreck in the middle of my bed. Usually an elastic corner or two of the bottom sheet has joined the fray.

I haven’t been to bed at 7:30pm since I was five. A time when falling asleep could happen in the middle of dinner or before number two was done. Bedtime was a cake-walk, whatever that means. I think it means it was easy. I think people who make up expressions like this have been awake for a week, or have been sniffing lead shot or felt markers.

I set my alarm on my clock radio for 6am, and fine-tuned in my favourite radio station to start my day. A generally pointless exercise as even though it will go off at 6am, I’m usually awakened to a static filled Hungarian cooking show intertwined with some hooligan sport from the BBC. (The English can make knitting a hooligan sport).

I fall back into bed, my head nestled into the pillow like a young boy between his mothers breasts. Darkness descended.

The alarm went off and I had actually slept through the night. No trips to the bathroom, watching the clock, or beating the snot out of Billy Dorkarino for swiping my milk at the Cub sleep out in ’69. Unfortunately, I still felt like I was ridden hard and put away wet. I felt short changed. But I had one restful sleep.

Next night I went to bed again at 7:30pm. The next morning I felt a little better. Not rise-and-shine-up-and-at-em rested, but a lot better.

After the third morning of going to bed at 7:30pm, I awoke feeling fully rested, alert and ready to take on the day. At the time I wasn’t working, so I took on a bowl of Cheerio’s instead.

This is great. This is fantastic. This is what it’s all about. My sleep problems are solved and restful sleep is mine.

That was five years ago. I remember it because it was the first and only time in four decades that I experienced the real deal. How did I do it? Can I ever do it again?