When I was growing up, I was as determined not to go to sleep as my mother was that I would go to sleep at a regular time. I was a night owl. She was a morning bird.

However, night owls excel at protective coverage. They know how to sit silently awake with no one the wiser.

Read free! No nagging to turn out the light. No fussing about a plea to finish the chapter. It was great. It involved flashlight and under-cover reading but it worked. Then I was caught and the flashlight removed.

My best effort was when I figured out I could take a pillow and make a body shape out of one pillow and put what should have been my head on top of it, pull up the blanket over the pillow-child and my mother saw what she thought was a little girl asleep in her bed when she peered into the dark.

No. I had a towel stashed so that I could go into the closet, turn on the light, arrange my stuffed animals for pillows and add that towel— so that the light would not shine under the door and give me away— as I read illegally by my mother’s laws.  This worked very well all spring and summer.

Fall came. She was worried one night that I might need another blanket. When she came in to put it over me she found not her child but a pillow substitute.

She shrieked. It then took her about one minute to figure out I was hiding somewhere reading and one more minute to find me.

That ended my late night reading until I was old enough to set my own bedtime.

My father said, ” You would do much better in school if you could start classes at moonrise.” So true.

There are many reasons why people have trouble sleeping. An odd term, or it is odd to me, mentioned in this report is “sleep hygiene.” That includes the part of my mother’s plan which required  going to bed at a regular time and getting up at a regular time.

The rest of sleep hygiene is much more sophisticated—relaxation techniques and cognitive behavioral therapy, for instance. I was relaxed. There was no one on earth who could have convinced me my reading was not a great idea so the therapy would not have worked either.

My long-suffering parents managed with their night owl but, looking back, I don’t know how. I am reformed. Still a night owl biologically, I understand the marvelous effects of eight hours of sleep. I am reformed. Mostly. Unless there is a really great book. Or I need to check the news. Pretty reformed. I am in charge of myself at last.

The only issue not considered on the doctor sleep hygiene- problem list below is that some people don’t go to sleep at night because they are night owls. They don’t want to if they can keep their eyes open.

For people who really do want to go to sleep—millions of Americans—this poster session should offer helpful tips.

The researchers report that 75% of doctors write prescriptions first without trying the sleep hygiene recommendations first.

Medpage Today

“Evidence-based recommendations to the contrary, few physicians prescribe nonpharmacologic interventions as first-line therapy for insomnia, researchers said here. (Emphasis added)

“Nearly three-quarters of surveyed physicians reported writing prescriptions for sleep medications as their primary course of treatment, Meghan Rieu-Werden, a research assistant at Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues reported during a poster session at the American Psychiatric Association meeting. (Emphasis added)

“Many treatment guidelines recommend nonpharmacologic interventions as first-line treatment for insomnia, regardless of the cause or associated medical and psychiatric conditions, according to the researchers.

“These interventions include cognitive therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, relaxation therapy, stress reduction therapy, and sleep hygiene education (SHE), all of which have all been shown to be effective monotherapy. (Emphasis added)

“Sleep hygiene education is particularly recommended, Rieu-Werden said. It includes going to bed and waking up at the same time every day, limiting the quantity or adjusting the timing of caffeine and alcohol intake, engaging in regular exercise, adjusting the timing of exercise, and implementing relaxation techniques.”

Source: Medpage Today, May 25, 2010

Source: Poster session, American Psychiatric Association Meeting, May 25, 2010