Sleep More and Be Happier

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Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired …

These, the opening lines of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 27,” accurately describe how I start out many a night. Unfortunately, my hope for rest all too often follows the bard’s next line: “But then begins a journey in my head.” The paean to sleep turns into a lament as I toss and turn.

I am not alone. to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Most days or every day” in 2020, nearly 15 percent of American adults had trouble falling asleep in the previous month. The result is that an average of three days a week, either because they don’t sleep well enough or because they simply don’t get enough sleep.