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Getting a good night's sleep has been a perennial challenge and an elusive dream for me, no matter where I have lived.
I have tried sleeping early and sleeping late, but to no avail.
As soon as I go to bed, brain chatter invariably bedevils me for hours before I doze off, only to wake up tired, with dark circles under my eyes.
The only consolation is that I am just one of millions around the world suffering from sleeplessness.
The condition has become so widespread that authorities in many countries are calling insomnia a major public health issue.
In China, almost 40 percent of adults suffer from insomnia, according to a report released last year by the China Sleep Research Society. That's a lot of sleepless people.
Another survey puts the number of adults suffering from sleep disorders in Beijing at 60 percent. It attributed the higher percentage to the city's fast-paced lifestyle.
And in the United States, about 60 million people are affected by sleep disorders each year, some really famous.
"This is such a special event that I took a break from my rigorous nap schedule to be here," Hillary Clinton joked at last month's Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner in New York.
That was an apparent reference to the leak of a 2013 US State Department email which showed Clinton confidante Huma Abedin reminded the then-secretary of state to "take a nap" just before a meeting with a visiting foreign dignitary.
Jokes aside, Clinton has admitted she has a real sleep problem.
"I was perpetually in a sleep deficit," she told The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon earlier this year.
The agony of sleep deprivation was documented by Gayle Greene in her 2008 book Insomniac. The long-suffering Greene calls insomnia "the bane of my existence since I can remember".
Beatles legend John Lennon, who suffered from chronic insomnia, wrote about his condition in I'm So Tired.
"I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink
I'm so tired, my mind is on the blink"
Lennon wrote these lines 48 years ago when he could not sleep during a meditation tour of India.
Insomnia has also been the topic of several documentaries and TV shows.
In an episode of the popular British television series Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson falls asleep after counting a flock of sheep, first on a poster and then on a calculator.
But that can happen only on TV.
Another famous Briton, the late prime minister Margaret Thatcher, is said to have slept just four hours a night following a late-to-bed, early-to-rise routine.
"Sleep is for wimps," the Iron Lady has been widely quoted as saying.
I wouldn't mind being called a wimp, if I could somehow get a few straight hours of sleep!
Contact the writer at abdul@chinadaily.com.cn
