icon to save an article into your beauty book.
icon to delete a product. 
Week 1: I Admit a Hard Truth
To start the program, I was asked to merely record my sleep habits by filling out a log, sent to me via e-mail. There were nine questions about every night's sleep. The second question, after "What time did you go to bed?" was: "What time did you turn the lights out to go to sleep?"
I was mortified to admit it, but most nights I didn't turn out the lights — I just fell asleep to the TV. I used Law & Order as my narcotic. That dong! seemed to work on me like a mug of warm milk. (I was usually out before the show ended, but no matter — my husband, who goes to bed later than I do, always TiVoed it for me, so I could finish watching it when I woke later in the night.)
Once upon a time, I wouldn't have considered going to bed without reading, and I actually turned off my lamp after a half hour or so, and then drifted off. But it now occurred to me that I probably had both types of insomnia; I'd just masked the first. The sorry fact was that I had poorer going-to-sleep habits than a toddler. I'd expected more of my two children when they were still in diapers.
I e-mailed Dr. Jacobs my first week's log. It revealed that I fell asleep within a half hour every night (dong!) but that I woke up every night as well, usually more than once and on several nights for an hour and a half to two hours.
Week 2: I Get with the Program
The second week's session suggested I make changes in my habits: I was to use my bed only for sleep (and sexual activity). The instructions told me to spend no more than 20 minutes to a half hour in bed before going to sleep and after waking up. I could read or watch TV, but only for that limited, "transitional" time, not as a prolonged activity. My brain needed to relearn to associate my bed with sleeping. Likewise, I was to cut out any other activities that I enjoyed doing in bed — like working or talking on the phone — since these activities turn our beds into what Dr. Jacobs calls "cues for wakefulness," rather than invitations to sleep.
And when I woke up in the night, I was to give myself only 20 to 30 minutes (an estimated 20 to 30 minutes, since I wasn't supposed to watch the clock) to fall asleep again. I could read in bed, but if I couldn't drop off within a half hour, I was to go into another room and do something relaxing until I felt drowsy.
To improve my sleep efficiency, I was to go to bed later and get up at the same time every day. Based on an analysis of my first week's sleep log, I was told my earliest lights-out should be 11 p.m. Since I was an early-ish riser anyway, I should get up consistently at 6:30 a.m., using an alarm clock if necessary.
I didn't like having to stay out of bed until at least 11 p.m. Sometimes I am so tired from living my life that I crawl in long before then — not to sleep, but just to sip a cup of tea and watch the news or a movie with my family. Years ago, I decided not to convert the dining space in our apartment into a family — that is, TV-room, and demoted the TV to our bedroom. The good news is that we have a lovely dining area; the bad news is that the master bedroom is now our family room, and the TV is the fifth member of our family. (In addition to my 14-year-old, I have a 24-year-old daughter who recently moved to her own apartment.)
And I wasn't crazy about being told I had to get up at 6:30, either. Even if I happened to be awake at 6:30 most days, I wanted it to be because that's the way it happened, not because I was following a rule.
But I did want to give the program a shot. So that second week, I made myself spend the evenings out of my bed. If I watched TV, I sat in an easy chair in the bedroom. If I wanted to phone a friend or sew on a button, I made myself do it in another room, or I sat in that same bedroom chair. And once in bed, I made myself turn out the light after a half hour of reading. It felt a little forced, but I did it.
To my total surprise, I found that I fell asleep fairly quickly. Any trepidation about lying there ruminating on my life and its problems just...didn't happen. It was as if my brain and body wanted the program to work in spite of all my misgivings.
I was less inclined to give up my dead-of-night TV habit. I guess I felt most vulnerable late at night, and I was probably rewarding myself for being such a good girl about going to sleep; whatever the reason, I continued watching TV whenever I woke up in the wee hours for most of that second week.
Next: Does it work?
