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For a few months in the first half of 2019, Chris Payze started each morning at home in Queensland, Australia, by jotting down answers to a series of questions. What time did I go to bed? How many times did I wake up? Speaking to The Scientist this April, 71-year-old Payze said she’d gotten “really into the groove” of this daily routine. “It only takes me about five minutes.”
She recorded the information for a trial of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep-wake cycles and is often taken orally as a sleep aid, although it’s not clear how well it works. Payze has Parkinson’s disease, and for the last couple years, she, like many people with the condition, has been dealing with insomnia. “I just have awful trouble sleeping at night,” she explains. While she doesn’t feel sleep-deprived, the interrupted sleep “is just annoying me. ...
