When you find yourself awake well past the hour when you hope to be dreaming, you know that doom scrolling the headlines will not relax you.

If you search instead for articles about sleep, those might be even worse.

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd. Regularly missing out on slumber is

associated with a wide-ranging spectrum of health consequences, from memory problems to diabetes to

cancer. But no matter how thoroughly we believe in the importance of sleep, we cannot just

will ourselves to do it. Sleep tracker technology that promises to help us rest better turns every

night into a kind of test situation. And as my guest can tell us from her years of wrestling with

chronic insomnia, the sense of failing at sleep only adds to the misery of being awake most of the night.

Jennifer Sr. is a staff writer at The Atlantic where you can read her article,

Why Can't Americans Sleep?

Jennifer, welcome back to think.

Oh, thank you so much for having me here, Chris.

It's really exciting.

So your sense is that you slept well, like, until you didn't.

In early adulthood, what sort of rhythm was your body in when it came to sleeping and waking

before you noticed any problems?

One to nine, one to nine, one to nine.

And I was as regulated as an atomic clock.

I was unwavering in this rhythm.

It was spooky. I mean, I know that sleep professionals say that insomniacs all romanticized their pre-lapsarion day, you know, before

everything went to hell. But I can tell you right now that my sleep was so regular that when I lost my alarm clock,

which in those days one actually needed, we didn't have iPhones.

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