"Exactly," said Clerk, "you have lost faith in your ability to sleep."

I shrugged, muttered that faith truly is a gift and asked him how I got this way. He told me it's a matter of simple conditioning. The more I fail at sleeping, the more I associate all the trappings of sleep with big-time slumbo- failure. For most folks, he said, the bedtime ritual — brushing the teeth, turning out the lights, pulling up the covers — is an effective cue triggering relaxation and drowsiness. For me, it's a warning buzzer signaling frustration ahead: a neurotic wake-up call that sends me to bed fully jazzed and ready for nothing.

Tips for a Better Night's Sleep
Sounds familiar. But how can I change my ways? Clerk responded with the following list of tips, intended to unravel all my negative bedtime associations:

• Get up the same time every day, and go to bed only when sleepy.
• Exercise regularly, (but never close to bedtime) and cut down on caffeine.
• Establish a relaxing pre-sleep ritual — a warm bath, a light snack, 10 minutes of light reading. But skip the nightcap, since even a small dose of alcohol can make your sleep more fragile.
• Use the bedroom only for sleep and sex — that way, you'll be conditioned to relax whenever you enter.
• If you can't fall asleep in 20 minutes, don't toss and turn. That will only exacerbate the negative associations between bedtime and sleep. Instead, you should get up, do something boring and go back to bed only when you feel drowsy.

Well, see, I've had all that just about exactly backward: I tend to swill coffee, work late, fall into bed while my mind's still chugging and, when I can't nod off, I fixate on the work I didn't finish, or the puzzling silence of God, or why my beloved Steelers continue to blow games in the AFC finals.

But now I know better, and one more piece of the puzzle has been snapped into place. But I'm still a work in progress, and tomorrow I'll show you how Dr. Clerk untangled yet another of my baffling slumber woes.

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