Tired and Sleepless

You guys may actually spend the night there tonight.

Like millions of exhausted people in this country, Lisa Waslis is an insomniac. A single mom with a demanding career, she battles migraines, allergies, and stress. To complicate matters, Lisa suffers from ADD, Attention Deficit Disorder, and fibromyalgia, a chronic pain muscle condition.

And when you know you're going to be in pain every time you lay down or you know that you're going to have these issues or you know that you have all these things running through your head, there becomes a mental thing where you don't want to go to sleep because you have so much to do.

Approximately 1/3 of the population at any given time will have insomnia. In conjunction with her physician, we placed Lisa on a medication in order to stabilize her sleep cycle. From there, we used behavior modification in order to look at her sleep staging, in order to look at her habits surrounding sleep, decreasing things like caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine to allow for a smoother transition to bed.

Breus adds the following tips for a good night's sleep. Don't nap during the day. Don't go to bed until you're tired. Get out of bed when you can't fall asleep. Avoid rigorous exercise three hours before bedtime. And don't eat, work, or watch TV in bed. The key, says Breus, is to develop a routine, set a regular schedule to get up in the morning, even on weekends, and follow the same bedtime rituals each night. Today, Lisa is a new woman. She even has enough energy to pursue her private passion--

One, two.

--lead singer for a local rock band.

[SINGING]

For WebMD, I'm Sandy Lamott.