Perhaps when I was an infant I slept well. My mother never discussed that part of my life with me. She didn't need to remind me about my childhood sleep problems, though. I can remember lying in bed as young as seven or eight years old, energy racing through my veins at 9 pm, 10 pm, 11 pm as I listened to my parents' voices filter down the hallway mixed with the faint sounds of the television. Three or four times a night, every night, I would run down that hallway and into the den where Ben and Emily sat, whining my mantra, "I can't sleep!"

My teens were somewhat of a blur, but I'm fairly certain there was some heavy sleeping going on then. However, once I entered my twenties, the sleep problem resurfaced. Since then, it has only gotten worse. Next, dear Mother Nature delivered her final crushing blow: Menopause. Many a woman has spared herself the side effects by taking hormone replacement therapy, and I hear that it helped with the sleep too. But once a connection had been established between HRT and cancer, doctors were no longer handing it out like candy. Menopause and perhaps the aging process itself seem to interfere with the body's ability to manufacture melatonin, the hormone that gets us drowsy and helps us get a good night's sleep. Based on my sleep patterns, I suspected that my body was producing about zero melatonin.

There was a time when I actually got drowsy, fell asleep quickly, and then awoke at about 3:00 a.m. Wakefulness could last from 15 minutes to two hours, and occasionally I never got back to sleep at all, rendering a total night's sleep of 3 to 4 hours! It just got worse as the years passed, until I started to realize that I wasn't even getting drowsy at night. I could stay up all night long and not sleep one minute. I wondered how I could pursue a normal life with almost no sleep. I fell asleep during the day, at my desk, at the movies, anywhere I sat down. I even fell asleep at the wheel at a red light! Scary, but true. The shock of it when I woke up kept me driving awake until I got home.

Out of desperation I asked my doctor for something, and she prescribed Ambien (zolpidem), a sleeping pill that you may have seen advertised on TV. The doctor gave me 10 mg tablets and advised me to cut them in half because 5 mg was enough (she was right about that). This stuff is amazing and can really conk you out. There are drawbacks:

1. I tend to wake up groggy and need anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to shake it off.
2. A level of tolerance can build up whereby 5 mg isn't enough, then 10 mg isn't enough.
3. I have heard that the sleep you get with Ambien isn't totally normal: We have 4 sleep cycles, two long and two short, and with Ambien those are reversed. I cannot confirm this as absolute science though.

I have read numerous good and bad experiences with this sleep agent, but the bottom line for me was, "Do I want to take a sleeping pill every night for the rest of my life?" The answer for me is no. Luckily, I discovered a combination of natural solutions that allowed me to put the bottle of Ambien in the back of my medicine cabinet. I am delighted to share them with my fellow insomniacs.

I started taking melatonin tablets which you can purchase at a fairly reasonable price at any pharmacy. Try Costco for a good deal. A pharmacist friend told me that the body produces about 3 mgs of melatonin per night and that indeed is what you will find at the store: 3 mg tablets. I found that if I took one an hour or so before bedtime, I got drowsy and fell asleep easily, but I didn't stay asleep all night. Once again, that window of time from 3 to 5 a.m. was shaking me wide awake.

A friend told me that she was taking vitamin B-12 during the day because she discovered on a doctor's website that it helps the body to absorb and utilize melatonin. She added that the B-12 must be taken sublingually (dissolved under the tongue) because once it heads through the digestive tract it is easily destroyed by our digestive juices. Sublingual B-12 tablets are easily available at pharmacies and drugstores. I'm taking two tablets per day: one at lunch and one near dinnertime. The result has been spectacular: the melatonin was far more effective now!

Nonetheless, I was still suffering some bad insomniac nights, although far fewer. Recently another friend recommended magnesium. She said it gets her drowsy and is an excellent natural sleep aid. I added that to my regimen and found that it enhanced the other natural sleep aids I'm taking. Take the magnesium (200 - 500 mg) in the early evening, maybe an hour or two after dinner. I'm taking a combination calcium-magnesium-Vitamin D tablet that caught my eye at Trader Joe's. My sleepless nights are rare now!

To encapsulate (pardon the pun): Two tablets of vitamin B-12 during the day, 1 tablet of magnesium after dinner, 1 tablet of melatonin an hour or so before bedtime. Try it and please let me know if it is as good for you as it is for me.

Be sure to avoid foods and chemicals that would disturb your sleep, as these will overcome the effects of the above natural sleep aids: No sugar, protein, fats, spicy foods or heavy meals late at night. No caffeine after noontime. Avoid caffeine-containing items such as: coffee, tea, decaf, chocolate, soda, and also check with your doctor about any medication you are taking....it might contain caffeine. Also no liquids after 8 p.m. or your bladder will be the culprit in the middle of the night. Cigarettes and alcohol are also sleep disrupters.

I have to admit, once in a while I'll go for something chocolaty late at night and then I take an Ambien because I know my sleep will be elusive otherwise. Still, that bottle of Ambien is getting old in the back of my medicine cabinet.