Ten years ago, I knew nothing about sleep. I thought it was something that took care of itself after I passed out. I start this story with my journey to sleep health, and then to assist you with dialing in your sleep, we delve into what doctors and scientists say about how to get seven hours of the best thing you can do for your mind and body. Yes, there will be a list of drugs you can take for instant relief, but hear me out, there are often better ways to get good sleep. I have nothing against pills, I throw them down like M&Ms, but there is a lot you can do first.
For years I had been told that my snore was like a banjo solo. You knew the next note was coming but there was nothing you could do to stop it. It wasn’t a big deal outside of the stress on my marriage with Julie. She threatened to use duct tape. A taser. Finally, the note on her desk: “To stop the snoring, place pillow tightly over face. Hold until snoring stops. Burn this note.”
Other than that, all was cool. Then I turn 65, and my snoring changes into something else. I lie flat on my back in fitful semi-consciousness as my soft palate and uvula vibrate louder and louder. The constriction sinks farther down my throat, I stop breathing and my legs twitch. I gag and explode, gasping for air, sitting bolt upright. I see her staring at me, the knuckles on her fist are white and her jaw is clenched. I say, “Wow, baby, guess you couldn’t sleep either.”
Sleep, no big deal until you don’t
What’s happening to me? How can I feel so old? Is this what dying feels like?
It’s 2015. At daylight my consciousness begins to congeal, and I strain to lift my reptilian head. I’m paralyzed, panting, heart racing, my throat is so dry I can’t swallow. I cannot pull my tongue off the roof of my mouth. On every heartbeat I feel a ball-peen hammer smash into my right temple.
I force enough water into my mouth to swallow five tabs of Ibuprofen. I chug water and pound coffee. I open my laptop but can’t focus on the Planet Cruz Comedy show I’m producing; there is no way to hold my head that doesn’t feel like it’s cracked with my brains leaking out.
I keep an eye on my To Do List to see how soon I can get high. I’d prefer to stay straight to interview a new comic at three o’clock, but fuck it, that’s too long to wait. I’m a high-functioning drug addict.
Julie insists she has gotten used to my snoring, but says lately the sound is more like convulsive explosions of someone desperate for air but unable to suck it in. My doctor makes me take a sleep test and Julie had nailed it: I have severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). My soft palate closes over my windpipe, and I stop breathing. Given the mayhem that happens to your body when your oxygen level drops, I am grateful I didn’t stroke out.
My doctor persuades me to try a CPAP, which stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. It pumps a low-pressure air stream through your nose into your lungs, and that keeps your throat open and keeps the soft palate from closing. Wearing it, I look like a character out of the Star Wars cantina scene. Julie calls it my “nose face.”
Getting used to the CPAP was a steep learning curve. To a claustrophobe like me a chin strap can feel like a torture device that must be outlawed at the Geneva Convention, but on the first night, I got lucky.
It worked. Next morning I walked with a spring in my step that I had not felt in 20 years. I hustled around Santa Cruz all day and partied with Julie into the night. I’ve even lightened up on my weed habit since I got the CPAP. One note of caution for potheads experimenting with being straight: Go slow—reality is not for everyone.
The Journal of Sleep Medicine reports that one in four men have sleep apnea, and one in eight women. What about the rest? Does the non-apnea crowd need to be concerned about their sleep? Do younger people even need to care?
“There is no aspect of your wellness that can retreat at the sign of sleep deprivation and get away unscathed.” So says brain scientist Matthew Walker.
Every night we go on Mother Nature’s life support system, a restoration that gives us our best shot at immortality. Healing miracles happen when we sleep, and madness, memory-loss and malady when we don’t. Sleep allows cerebrospinal fluid to wash your nervous system clean of metabolic waste and plaque, while sleep deprivation can damage your genetic code.
Brain scientist Dr. Matthew Walker is professor of neuroscience and psychology at UC Berkeley and co-author of Sleep, Memory and Plasticity. He says that men “who routinely sleep just four to five hours a night will have a level of testosterone that is of someone 10 years their senior.” To you young studs who don’t think good sleep enhances the way you make love, I offer two words: morning wood.
Walker says that men who get four hours of sleep a night have significantly smaller testicles than men who get seven. I was taught how to use my CPAP by a married woman who told me her sleep gives her so much energy, in the middle of the night she will rip the harness off her head, “and I just climb on top of that big, hunk of burning love I married twenty years ago.”
Some people wear their sleep deprivation like a badge of honor. They will even say, “You can sleep when you’re dead.” Brain scientist Walker suggests this is “mortally unwise.” Walker lays it out: “The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. Short sleep predicts all-cause mortality; it increases your risk of cancer and contributes to cognitive decline during aging. It will erode your DNA genetic code.”
Getting to Sleep and Staying That Way
If Tammi Brown was the Godmother of Santa Cruz soul, Dr. Aaron Morse is the Godfather of Santa Cruz sleep. “I love what I do. I love seeing patients. It’s extremely gratifying because so many people get better.” He tells me that his Sleep Health MD office deals with people who have multiple sleep disorders; they could have insomnia or restless leg syndrome, or nightmares related to PTSD.
Morse says that while sometimes medications are necessary, he really encourages behavioral treatment. He likes to treat underlying problems first, like depression or anxiety. “I had a patient with terrible PTSD. After her PTSD was treated, she got better, and her insomnia went away. We had her on medications, but it was treating the PTSD that helped her sleep.”
The Drugs
There are drugs that can be effective for an occasional sleepless night, but there are caveats. Dr. Morse says that most over-the-counter sleep aids contain antihistamines and tolerance can develop. The longer you take them, the less likely they are to make you sleepy. There is the hangover effect, and medicated sleeping is not as rejuvenating for your brain and body. Taking drugs to sleep beats the hell out of not sleeping at all, but continually taking drugs to sleep may not be your best longevity game.
Here are a few drugs you might want to check out as described by the Mayo Clinic:
Doxylamine (brand name Unisom) is a sedating antihistamine. When I cannot sleep and I must, one 25mg tab will put me out in 30 minutes. I will wake up groggy seven hours later, but we have other drugs to take at that point, don’t we? One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small…
I am reluctant to extoll the virtues of “better living through chemistry” to you as if all you need is another damn drug to deal with. If the question is, “Where does your peak of power lie?”
I am my best when I work out hard enough to get to sleep and stay that way. One hour of yoga, or bike riding or lifting weights usually kicks my ass hard enough so I can fall asleep, get seven solid hours and wake up feeling strong, limber and clear. A hike does the trick as well. Even a daily 30-minute walk will make a huge difference in your health. Just walk.
That said, when I’m on the road, 25mg of Unisom can give me seven hours of sleep so I can safely drive to the next town. Unisom works for me, I just don’t want you or me to become dependent upon it.
Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) is a sedating antihistamine. Back when I toured and lived in comedy clubs and airports, I would use Benadryl to fall asleep on planes. I remember it leaving me less groggy than the Unisom I sometimes use now, but maybe I was just younger and friskier then. Experiment carefully and with your doctor’s advice, everybody is different.
Duloxetine may help insomnia by improving depression and anxiety.
Melatonin in moderate doses can be effective for sleep. It’s a hormone that helps control your natural sleep-wake cycle. Dr. Morse says, “Rather than having insomnia patients take a slug of melatonin before they go to sleep, we have them take a very low dose of melatonin five to seven hours before their normal sleep time, for a condition called delayed sleep phase syndrome. It won’t make young adults sleepy but helps align their circadian rhythm to reduce the time it takes to get to sleep.”
Trazodone is an anti-depressant that isn’t used much anymore for depression, but its major side effect is it makes you sleepy and is widely used for sleep. It may be better at making you sleep than treating your depression.
Valerian is sold as a dietary supplement and is promoted as a sleep aid for nervous tension and insomnia.
Some of my friends squirt a dropper of liquid CBD (60mg) under their tongue before bed. They buy it online from Charlotte’s Web.
If you’ve got insomnia, go slow and talk to your primary care physician or sleep doctor.
Keep It Cool and Regular
Brain scientist Walker agrees with Dr. Morse and calls sleeping pills blunt instruments that do not produce naturalistic sleep. In patients with complex insomnia, sleep medications may be effective.
Walker offers two ways to improve our sleep, and number one for him is regularity.
“Go to bed at the same time, wake up at the same time, no matter whether it’s the weekday or the weekend. Regularity is king; it will anchor your sleep and improve the quantity and quality of your sleep.”
Walker’s second pillar of productive sleep is to keep it cool. He says your body needs to drop its core temperature two to three degrees to fall asleep and stay asleep. “You will find it easier to fall asleep in a room that is too cold rather than too hot. Aim for a bedroom temperature of around 65 degrees.”
Surviving the sleep tariff
The economy is stressing us out. Living through the self-anointed king’s reign of chaos is making us lose sleep, and it is no surprise that financial anxiety about stock volatility in 401(k)s is keeping us up nights. Financial psychologist Brad Klontz tells The New York Times, “We tend to anchor on whatever our highest balance was, so you may be focusing on how much money you’ve lost since then. If you look at your balance from a year ago, you’re probably still up.” Dr. Klontz says that it takes a good 30 minutes to an hour to calm down, so don’t look at your balances before bedtime. Just don’t.
When your finances feel out of your control, hiking is hard to beat for giving yourself a sense of mastery over your environment. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said, “If you feel bad, take a walk. If you still feel bad, take another one.”
Beyond the sound of silence
The right sounds for you can put you to sleep. Julie uses recordings of rain. I can fall asleep to an Audible Book if the reader has a deep voice. Check out this insomnia cure covered by Good Times health and wellness guru Elizabeth Borelli in her March 5 article about Dr. Jeffrey Thompson, founder of the Neuroacoustic Research Foundation in San Diego. Borelli writes, “Thompson had developed a method of recording personalized sound said to shift the nervous system from a state of stress and imbalance into a space of deep healing, emotional release and spiritual clarity.”
Retailers get daylight savings; young people pay
Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel is on a personal mission to get rid of daylight savings time. Kimmel says, “This nightmare experiment is performed on 1.6 billion people across 70 countries twice a year. Springing forward is the most annoying thing about spring.” The comedian is circadian rhythm right; in the spring we lose one hour of sleep, and the Department of Transportation says there is a 24 percent increase in heart attacks the following day. In the fall, when we fall back, there is a 21 percent reduction in heart attacks. It’s the same profile for car crashes, road traffic accidents and suicide rates.
Kimmel rants, “Who are these sick fucks who make us corrupt our celestially ordained circadian rhythm with daylight savings? Retailers who want more foot traffic. Retail merchants want us to walk around in the evening in a sleep-deprived stupor until we stagger into their store.”
More egregious is what daylight savings does to children and adolescents. Young people have a circadian rhythm that cycles up to two hours later than for the rest of us. When students can get up later, they do better in school.
University of Utah Health says, “Later school start times can make students who get more sleep more alert and ready to learn and get better grades and test scores.” SleepFoundation.org tells us that around the beginning of puberty, most adolescents experience later sleep onset and wake times, called “phase delay.” The average teenager does best when they wake up at 8am or later.
Can’t Sleep? Take a break.
If you spend more time trying to get to sleep than sleeping, you are not alone. Both Dr. Morse and scientist Walker say that if you are staying in bed awake for too long, go to a different room and do something different. Only return to bed when you are sleepy. Walker points out that we’d never sit at the dinner table, waiting to get hungry. Why would we lie in bed, waiting to get sleepy?
Dr. Morse says there is a common form of insomnia called psychophysiological insomnia, where excessive worry about sleep itself leads to difficulty falling or staying asleep.
“Somebody might have had a major stress in their life, financial problem, divorce, and it’s common to develop insomnia in association with that stress. People will lay there and struggle to get to sleep. The harder you try to get to sleep, the harder it is to get to sleep. The answer is to only go to bed when you’re sleepy. If you can’t sleep, get up.”
Maybe once a month I wake up with the 3am terrors, a litany of self-accusations and lacerations I inflict upon myself in the dark, until the stress feels like it is decaying my brain. It probably is, but if I get up and do restorative yoga, I can usually get back to sleep.
Sleep Divorce and Better Sex
New York Times reporter Catherine Pearson writes about partners sleeping apart, initially to get better sleep, but finding that it actually enhances their sex. The practice is at once taboo and common, but in an American Academy of Sleep Medicine survey, one-third of respondents sometimes sleep in another room to accommodate their partner. This may be seen as a sign that there is trouble in paradise, but more often people report that it helps reignite the spark.
Pearson interviews Rea Frey, who says, “The moment we separated our bedrooms, it was fun! It was like, ‘Do you want to come over to my room tonight?’” For couples considering sleeping apart, it’s important to talk about how you will prioritize intimacy. Don’t spring this on your squeeze after a rough night; maybe bring it up over a glass of wine and smooth jazz.
Laugh and the World Laughs with You, Snore and You Sleep Alone
Final solution to stop snoring: put bed frame on casters. Wait until husband is asleep. Push through the doorway and down the street. Look for tramp steamer.
Young folks deal with sleep apnea as well as old, and there are several treatments. One is mandibular advancement, a mouthguard-like device that pushes your jaw forward.
I empathize with people who are reluctant to embrace the CPAP. My nose is plugged into the wall with a tube that has merged with my face. A computer is recording my breathing when I’m in bed and it’s a matter of public record when I rub one out.
But here’s one last plug for urging you to sleep-test if you snore: using a CPAP stops your snoring completely. More than that, you must keep your mouth closed when you sleep. That alone can save your marriage.
There are creative ways to hack the bedroom. Dr. Phyllis Zee, a sleep medicine specialist with Northwestern Medicine, says earplugs, white noise or separate mattresses can help.
As for me and my bride, wearing my CPAP has taken me from rattling the walls to being a silent sleeping partner. Julie and I have added a pug to our bed situation and it’s Pugsley who snores now. I wear earplugs; Julie listens to recordings of falling rain and the pug snores, refusing to use a CPAP.
Article edited May 23, 2025, to include first name of Rea Frey.
Who is “Ms. Frey?” You quote her out of the blue.