If Whole Foods customers are typical, lots of Americans aren’t sleeping well today, and customers seek advice on this all the time. I’m not a clinician, but clinicians aren’t really killing it on improving sleep any more than they are on reducing diabetes, obesity, anxiety, or asthma, so with a disclaimer, I’m comfortable taking a shot, especially since I’m an experienced insomniac.

The overwhelming number of influencer podcasts trumpeting the importance of sleep to all aspects of health has led me to prioritize sleep for myself with reasonable results, if setting arbitrary sleep goals (7 hours 15 minutes nightly) then using questionable technology (wrist tracker) to determine whether I’ve reached them counts as reasonable. The number of items I rely on regularly probably does not.

First I turn off my phone and banish all room lights. The equipment basics include a good mattress, a flat pillow, two sheets and a comforter. Then there are the accoutrements. Below is a partial list.

• Side pillow
• Electric heating pad
• Wraparound sleep mask
• Ceiling fan
• White noise generator
• Shea butter
• Water bottle
• Artificial tears
• WF Sleep Support
• Back scratcher
• Flashlight
• Post-it notes
• Acetaminophen

The first five are used most nights. Shea butter is for my dry lips, which occasionally wake me, as can thirst and dry eyes. I use the melatonin-and-adaptogen supplement no more than 4X per month, and the back scratcher rarely, though when a back itch is driving me crazy it’s that or wake my spouse, a big No-No. The flashlight and post-it notes are for writing down swirling thoughts, ensuring I will address or at least remember them the next day. As a rule I avoid all analgesics, in fact all pharmaceuticals, but when my aging muscles can get achy after strenuous days, I take the hit to my liver.

That’a a lot of stuff!–and then there’s the process. If I can manage to stop eating, exercising, or staring at screens two hours before bedtime, I can usually fall asleep within an hour, but I can never do that, although maybe I should add my blue blocker glasses to the equipment list, since I use those to mitigate screen time when I remember. Glasses or not, most nights I will be lying awake, or dosing on and off, for a long time, during which I first try breath work, meditation, and clearing my brain. Next stage is mentally walking down infinite stairs or various dull numerical or alphabetical games that may bore me to sleep. I don’t get up to do something else or even read in bed. I lie there. For hours.

I realize how very lucky I am to be able to spend 9-11 hours in bed, which is what I seem to need to reliably reach my goal with at least one hour each of deep and REM sleep. I don’t wake up to an alarm, or if I do, it will be a sleep-deprived day. My clock display is turned off. My alarm is sometimes on to prevent oversleeping emergencies, but I wake up before it goes off.

Yes, it is actually possible to still be asleep after being in bed more than ten hours. REM sleep in particular comes late in my cycle. My husband convinced me the last two hours are most important, so if the morning chorus wakes me, I turn over my pillow and remind myself that the best is yet to come. A friend suggested I try going to bed later and staying there for a shorter time, and I tried, but no luck.

All of this is only possible in the semi-retired state. As a working adult and parent of school-age children, I had more stuff to do, so I had to be awake longer, and a lot of that stuff started early, so I had to use an alarm. I was sleep-deprived for thirty years at least.

Is all this sleep the reason I can now maintain my weight and experience high energy levels while awake? Who knows. Most of what we believe is illusionary.