‘The first few nights were punishing’: how sleep restriction cured my lifelong insomnia

Lara Williams: ‘I would have parted with a considerable chunk of my savings to get one night’s unbroken sleep.’ Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer

My struggles with insomnia began in my teens. I remember earnestly, pathetically, telling an old history teacher: “If I am yawning, it is not because I am bored, it is because I can barely sleep.”

“Have you tried a warm bath?” she offered, in what was to be my first instance of well-intentioned but ultimately completely useless advice. I stare at the ceiling until the early hours of the morning, my heart beating so fast it is as if I am being hunted for game. A warm bath is not going to cut it!