Sleep aids, soporifics are a lot like dates, chocolate, driving well over the speed limit, and sex: they all work better if done seldom. If you do them daily, they soon lose their potency. I have just had a terrible run of poor sleep, but not so much due to my lifestyle (I'm a sponge for on-line information and videos about a wide range of topics, and I'm an amateur astronomer....so it doesn't take any great intellect to assume I'm up until the wee hours). I care for a sometimes wife who has several autoimmune disorders that occasionally make her prescriptions cause her to be very unsteady on her feet to the point where I sometimes have to lunge and grab her when she's standing, whether at home or in public (I say sometimes wife because it seems I only get her, the old her, back several days a month. The rest are foggy and fraught). I am also the most handy and proximal child to my 96 year old dad who is in the last 15 months of life, as a guesstimate. Frail, cranky, fearful of falling, shuffles along with a walker...you get the picture. He called at 0550 on Friday to say he wanted to go to emerg because he couldn't pee. I'd fallen asleep near 0230. You can do the math. The next three nights have been only marginally better. Last night, without an aid, I slept exhaustedly until 0900, with the usual early-morning bedtime. So, it can be done, but a lot has to be in place for it to happen. You need few(er) obligations next day, none would be best, and you need to be tired. You must have shut off learning mode or inquisitiveness mode by shutting off all digital devices with a screen at least an hour earlier. When was the last time you sat at your dining table or breakfast table, but just before going to bed, and read your local newspaper obits? I take it as a civil obligation to do that...they're my neighbours! But it also calms my mind and puts it in the right frame to fall asleep.

Returning to soporifics: remember, use them only when they are absolutely critical for you to live well the next day. The rest of the time...................tough it out! I use melatonin or other concoctions, but maybe twice a week. I feel I need them to stay potent, and they will not do that if I use them every night.

This is just my thinking. I know I'm not representative of all of you, maybe of none of you. Our personalities and interest, and our regular obligations and duties, vary widely. We don't share the same histories, or even medical circumstances. But unless something is to be taken daily, like a statin or an anti-coagulant, or synthetic hormones like thyroxin, I really to fear taking, and depending on, a soporific regularly, daily.