On a recent visit, my daughter turned to me and said, “I owe you an apology. I’m always saying that I think you’re depressed and need to see a therapist, but I’m realizing I’ve been wrong about that. You just seem depressed when you don’t get enough sleep. When you’re well rested, you’re actually pretty normal.”

I have never been prouder of her. She gets it.

Sleep is everything for me—and, I’m convinced, for most people. When we’re sleep-deprived, we turn sour, cranky, and fretful. Conversation gets messy: we grope for words that were right there a second ago, start sentences and instantly forget where they were heading, and zone out when anyone else is talking. The slightest inconvenience feels overwhelming and dehumanizing. Other people become intolerable; we know intellectually that we love our kids and spouses but, man, those people SUCK when we’re tired. Small objects escape from our fingers and swan-dive to the floor. Knives deliberately slip and cut us; hot ovens find a way to burn us.

Being overtired is simply the worst, and, as a fully certified medical doctor (I’m not), I can state with confidence that the majority of our worst moods are caused by insufficient sleep.

I knew a guy once who could be sweet and charming and generous . . . but almost never was because he worked long hours, barely slept, and got up ridiculously early every morning. After a week of not getting enough sleep, he’d tear your throat out with his teeth if you wandered across his path. After a weekend with some decent sleep, he could be pretty good company again—assuming people were willing to hang around long enough to give him another chance.

People say teenagers are moody and difficult. Of course they are. Any self-respecting teen will stay up long past their parents’ bedtime, despite knowing they still have to get up ridiculously early for school. You’d be moody and difficult, too, if you were only getting six hours of sleep a night, at a time when your growing body is craving at least eight or nine and every day is filled with intellectual and physical challenges.

When my kids were school age, I horrified other parents by admitting that I never made them breakfast. Instead, I let them sleep as late as they possibly could and handed each kid a protein bar on their way out the door. Ten minutes more of sleep seemed way more valuable to me than a mouthful of scrambled eggs. Honestly, if I had been able to figure out a way to roll them straight from their beds onto the bus without waking them, I would have.

Of course, appreciating the value of sleep and actually sleeping well are two very different things, something I think we can all agree on at two am, when our thoughts and hearts are challenging each other to a sprint: “Race you past the island of disquietude and right over the cliffs of insanity!”

Sleep is a cruel bedfellow, desirable and enticing, but quick to dodge your grasp the more desperately you reach out for it. Nothing will ruin a night’s sleep faster than the plaintive thought, “I really need a good night’s sleep.” You might as well set a fire alarm to go off every few hours in your bedroom. (Which, admittedly, happens at my house all the time—our smoke alarms LOVE to run out of battery at 3 am, leading us to play the “I can’t tell which one is beeping and it’s dark and I’m tired and I hate my life” game, which is only slightly more fun than the, “One of the pets pooped in here—I can smell it but I can’t find it, so help me look” game.)

I wish I could tell you how to beat insomnia, but we each have to grope our way separately toward what works best for us when it comes to sleep aids—and even then, most fixes are sporadic at best and probably based more on luck than chemistry. My theory has always been that the healthiest thing doctors could do is lie and say there’s a terrific new sleep aid and then slip us all sugar pills, since the mere act of taking something convinces you that sleep is forthcoming, and that thought alone can lull you to sleep.

But still, despite pills, edibles, ‘shrooms—whatever you think helps you most—there’s no way completely to avoid those lonely middle-of-the-night self-flagellation sessions, when every cringy thing you’ve ever said or done comes back to haunt you. All any of us can do is resign ourselves to a certain number of sleepless nights each month, hope the good ones outweigh the bad ones, and learn to get up in the morning with the reassuring thought, “Bedtime is only fourteen hours away. I can make it.”

And thank god for coffee. Coffee is your best friend when you’re sleep-deprived. Actually, it’s your only friend, since lack of sleep has turned you into a total asshole, and no one wants to come near you.

Don’t take my word for it—ask my daughter.

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