Judy Foreman Author & Journalist

As the economy sinks, insomnia increases and America searches for a good night’s sleep Chris Dalto is an affable fellow, a happily married father of two and a lawyer-turned-financial planner. Normally, he sleeps like a baby. But last fall, when Lehman Brothers tanked and the stock market fell apart, Dalto began waking up at 3…

In July, researchers led by Robert Stickgold, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, reported that a full eight hours’ sleep after learning a motor task boosts performance by 20 percent the next day. Even a one-hour nap can improve scores on a simple visual task, others reported in May. Perhaps even more…

Mary Rourke, a 55-year old teacher from Salem, N.H., used to nod off all the time as a child, but people just shrugged and said, “Oh, she must be very tired,” she recalls. Then, as an adult, she began having attacks in which her muscles would lose tone and she’d fall- every time she laughed…