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It's the Brian Laird Show here on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hanson in for Brian.

We're going to end today's show with a conversation about insomnia.

For most of us, sleep is a refuge that helps us recharge after a long day.

But in his recent New Yorker essay, what an insomniac knows, Adam Gopnik offers a look at what happens when that refuge

is not so readily available. Rather than just lamenting sleeplessness, Gopnik portrays his

insomnia as an experience with its own conscious architecture. Be warned, however, Gopnik

writes, veteran insomniacs seeking reassurance in these pages will not find it.

While many of us are told to find comfort in the idea that creative giants wrestled with sleeplessness, his essay reminds us that mythologizing does little to ease the isolation and frustration of insomnia. So let's talk more

about sleeplessness and the way it defies and defines our expectations about sleep.

Adam Gopnik is a New Yorker staff writer and he joins us now. Hi, Adam. Hey, Tiffany. How are you?

Good. How'd you sleep last night?

Glad you asked. Very much, as I always do, is exactly as you quoted, you know, insomniacs have an architecture of the night that in a way imitates the architecture of sleep itself,

which is everyone knows, you know, has deep sleep and REM sleep. And so us insomniacs

aren't just kind of awake and working. We're pursuing sleep as best we can. So my usual hour,

I took, because all insomniacs have their own rituals, I took a melatonin, a chewable melatonin.

Then I fell asleep, woke up again at 3.30, lay in bed for

10 minutes, and every sleep expert tells you, it's a big mistake just to lie there for more than

10 or 15 minutes. So I went to an empty sofa. I listened to an NFL football podcast, which

tends to calm me down. I breathe deeply, and then I listened to an NFL football podcast, which tends to calm me down. I breathe deeply,

and then I listened to a meditation, fell back asleep after about an hour and a half and was up

again at 7.30, a very typical night for me. Well, I think a lot of folks might say, you know,

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