After 40, my quality of sleep declined rapidly. I wasn’t surprised—my mother had gone through the same thing, so I figured more frequent wakeups were a natural part of getting older. But this being normal didn’t make me any less miserable. On nights when I’d wake up and be unable to fall back asleep, my entire next day would be spent in an exhausted fog. I knew I needed to make sleep a priority, which led me on a years-long search for a solution.