Excellent 4.7 sur 5

Then one Sunday night my older sister said something on the phone that made me stop pretending.

I am writing this because three people I see or talk to regularly have asked me in the last month what I had been doing differently.

Maya asked first. Chris asked at breakfast on a Saturday. Rachel asked in the parking lot after our pottery class.

I have been giving them the short answer. I am writing the long answer down now so I can send it to the next person who notices.

I am Sofia. I am 34. I have been a senior product designer at a health tech company for five years. I lead the design system team. My partner Chris is 36. He teaches ninth grade English at a public high school. We live in a two bedroom third floor apartment we have rented for five years, in a quiet building on a block with a park at the corner.

I am writing this in the first person because the story is mine.

For most of my adult life I had been a person who slept.

I do not mean anything dramatic by that.

I mean that when I put my head down at eleven, I was out by eleven fifteen, and I did not open my eyes until my alarm went off at six. I mean that in college I could fall asleep in the library with my laptop open on my chest during finals week. I mean that when Chris and I moved into this apartment five years ago and the trash trucks came at five thirty on Wednesdays, I slept through them for the first year and did not know they existed until Chris mentioned them.

For fifteen years, I slept.

Then about eighteen months ago, I stopped being able to.

I did not notice it at first.

The first time I noticed it consciously was on a Tuesday night. I had been lying in bed with the light off for what I thought was ten minutes. I turned my head to look at the clock on the nightstand and it said 11:47.

I had turned the light off at ten forty. My mind had been sorting

through a Slack thread from four in the afternoon the entire time. I had not registered any time passing.

I did not say anything to Chris. I did not say anything to myself. I turned onto my side and I tried again.

Over the next few months the lying awake became a habit my mind learned. I would get into bed at eleven. My eyes would close. And then somewhere between eleven ten and eleven forty my brain would open a browser tab and start clicking through things I had not finished. Tomorrow's standup. The email I had not sent to the head of engineering. The comment I had made in the design review that I should not have made. Whether I had signed the vet form for our cat. Whether Rachel was mad about my last cancellation.

Most nights I was asleep by twelve thirty. Some nights it was closer to one.

I did not tell anyone.

I started skipping the six a.m. runs. Not on purpose. I would set the alarm and then in the morning I would turn it off and go back to sleep for another hour. I told myself the summer was too hot to run at six. Then I told myself the winter was too cold. Then I stopped setting the alarm at all.

The running shoes stayed by the door.

I dropped pottery. I had been going with my best friend Rachel on Wednesday nights for a year and a half. We had our own bench at the studio. I canceled twice in a row, then I stopped signing up for the next session. I told myself I was between projects at work and I would go back next quarter.

I stopped calling my sister on Sundays. Maya and I had been calling every Sunday night for eight years, since her son was born. I started missing the call and telling her I had lost track of time. She would text back "no worries" and I would tell myself I would call the next Sunday. I did not always.

I stopped cooking real dinners.

Chris and I had cooked together most nights of the week for years. It started with one takeout on a Wednesday because I was tired. Then it was two. Then it was most nights. I told myself we were both busy.

I was reading the same page of the same book for three weeks. I would pick it up before bed. I would read one paragraph. My eyes would move to the next paragraph and my brain would already be somewhere else. I would put the book down. I told myself I would try again tomorrow.

Chris asked me one Saturday morning at breakfast if I was okay. I said I was fine. I told myself I meant it.

Maya had been quietly noticing.

She had let three or four missed Sunday calls go without saying anything. She had asked Chris once, quietly on a text thread, if I was under something at work. Chris had not told me.

She said it on a Sunday night. I had actually picked up. It was eight fifteen. I was sitting on the couch with the TV muted. I had missed the last two Sundays.

She said, "Sof, I have been trying to catch you for a while."

I said I was sorry, work was a lot.

She said, "It has been six months of work being a lot."

I did not answer that.

I did not sleep much that night.

I told Chris the next morning. He was making coffee and I said, "I have not been sleeping well for over a year and I have not been telling anyone."

I said, "How."

He said, "You come to bed and then you lie there. You get up sometimes and go read on the couch. You come back. I have watched it. I did not know how to bring it up."

He did not sound frustrated. He sounded relieved that I had said it out loud.

I made an appointment with Dr. Okoro that morning. She has been my primary care doctor for four years. I told her the whole thing sitting in the exam room in a paper gown. I told her about the lying awake, the eleven forty seven Tuesday, the runs, the pottery, the Sunday calls, the takeout, the same page of the book, Chris, Maya.

Dr. Okoro ran the full panel. Blood work. Thyroid. Vitamin D. Iron. Cortisol. She had me do a sleep questionnaire and she pulled my history from the physical I had done a year and a half ago.

Everything came back fine.

She sat across from me on the little stool and she said, "Sofia, your labs are boring. Which is what we want. What you are describing is very common in people your age with your kind of job and the standard checks do not always show it."

She said, "There is a difference between falling asleep and getting your mind to stop first.

The market for sleep is almost entirely built around the falling asleep part, which is what a sleeping pill does. What breaks down for a lot of women in their thirties in high-cognitive jobs is the transition. The shut-off. Your body is ready to sleep. Your nervous system has not gotten the message that the day is over. That is a nervous system layer as much as it is a habit one."

She told me to stop looking at Slack after eight. She told me to walk in the morning light. She told me not to reach for a sleeping pill.

She said, "If you want to add something in the plant compound layer, that is a sensible thing to try. Add it. Do not change anything else. Give it a few weeks."

I am going to skip the part where I read for the next four weeks.

Here is the short version of what I concluded.

The stuff on the shelf at the pharmacy is mostly melatonin. Melatonin is a signal your body already makes to tell it what time it is. It is not a switch. It works for jet lag and shift work. It does not do much for a mind that will not shut down at eleven forty on a Tuesday.

The category I needed to look at was different. Magnesium in a form the body can actually use. Amino acids the body converts into its own calming compounds. Plant extracts that have been used for a long time in traditional practice for the same complaint I had, with modern research to point to. And the form mattered as much as the ingredients. A capsule with two things in it at trace doses is not the same as a full formula at real doses.

I read about a small company called Tryluvre.

They make one product. A melatonin free sleep gummy. Eight active ingredients on the label. Magnesium glycinate at a hundred and fifty milligrams. GABA at a hundred and sixty. L Tryptophan at a hundred. Tart cherry, passionflower, chamomile, wild jujube, hops. All named on the panel with the amounts printed next to them, not hidden inside a proprietary blend.

The gummies are deep red cubes. Cherry flavored. One gummy about thirty minutes before bed. Thirty in a jar. Thirty nights.

The company had a 4.9 star rating and over four thousand reviews.

I called Dr. Okoro's office before I ordered anything. I read her the eight ingredients over the phone. She said, "That is a reasonable stack. Add it to what you are already doing. Give it six weeks. Come back and see me at the three month mark."

I ordered my first jar that evening.

I ordered the three pack because it came with free shipping and three small extras I did not really need but figured I would open. I started the following Sunday night.

I did not change anything else. I kept the same bedtime. I kept the same schedule. I did not stop Slack at eight. I did not throw out the book I had been trying to read. I wanted to know if it did anything on its own.

I want to tell you what I noticed over the next eight weeks. I am not going to make a claim about what caused what. I am going to tell you what happened in the order it happened.

The first week, not much. I still lay in bed on Monday sorting through a meeting from the afternoon. I still lay in bed on Wednesday sorting through what I should have said to my head of engineering.

The second week I fell asleep before Chris did on a Thursday. He said something to me and I did not answer because I was already out. He told me the next morning. I had not fallen asleep before Chris on a Thursday in a year.

The third week I slept through the alarm on a Saturday and woke up at seven fifty.

That had not happened in a very long time. I lay in bed after the alarm and I did not want to get up because the bed felt like a bed again.

By the fourth week the tab clicking at night had gotten quieter. It did not stop. It just did not run as long. I would get into bed. My eyes would close. I would sort one thing for a couple of minutes and then I would be gone.

Around the fifth week I put the running shoes back on. I did not run. I walked around the block twice before work on a Tuesday. It took twenty minutes. It felt like something.

Around the sixth week I signed up for the next pottery session. I told Rachel over text. She said, "Finally."

Around the seventh week I called Maya on a Sunday night without needing to remember to. It was eight ten. She picked up on the second ring.

Around the eighth week I finished the book I had been carrying around for eight months. It was not a good book. I did not care.

I went back to Dr. Okoro at the three month mark. She ran the panel again. She looked at the numbers. She said, "The best they have been since I have known you."

I want to be careful here.

I am not a doctor. I am one 34 year old woman with a demanding job who had been lying awake most nights for over a year and had been pretending she was not.

I do not know for certain that Tryluvre was responsible for what changed. I do know what I was doing before. I know what I added. I know what has happened. I know the timing.

What I am telling you is what I tried. What I noticed. What Dr. Okoro said about it.

That is all.

The running shoes by the door. The pottery bench. The Sunday call. The book on the nightstand. The dinner I used to cook on Sunday for the week.

If you are in your thirties or forties and you have been lying in bed at night with your brain running for a while, and you have been telling yourself it is just this project, just this season, just the way your job is, here is what I would say.

Talk to your doctor. Tell her what you have been pretending not to notice. Have her rule things out.

If everything comes back fine, ask her about adding one more thing in the plant compound layer. If she agrees it is a sensible thing to try, add it to what you are already doing. Do not subtract anything. Give it a few weeks before you decide anything.

Bodies are different. Some people notice something within the first week or two. Others take longer. Be patient with yours.

That is the whole story.

P.S. Maya called me last Sunday. She asked how the pottery was going. I told her I had made a bowl. She said, "Keep noticing things, Sof."

P.P.S. Here is what I would tell you to do if you are thinking about trying it.

Check with your doctor first. Take one gummy about thirty minutes before bed. Do not change anything else. Give it a few weeks before you decide anything.

P.P.P.S. Tryluvre has a thirty night money back guarantee. The three pack comes with free shipping in the US and three small extras (a weighted sleep mask, a written ritual guide, and a thirty night reset). I only bothered with the mask. Chris uses it.

P.P.P.P.S. Rachel ordered a jar last month after I told her the short version. She said it took her about eight nights before she noticed anything. She is on her second jar.