How to Get Back to Sleep Sleep has never been easy for Leslie Partridge Sachs, a dancer, choreographer, and mother of two young girls who lives in Garrison, N.Y. Even as a child, she says, "I had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep." Once she became a mother, her insomnia worsened.

"I sleep very lightly -- I hear my daughters even if they turn over in bed. And most mornings I wake up at 3:30 or 4 and can’t get back to sleep." Her average night’s shut-eye of four to five hours affects her mood. "I feel irritable," Sachs, 47, says. "I’m often short-tempered." But she’s not sure what to do.

See How to Fight 12 Causes of Sleepiness and Fatigue