Surely the loneliest time in anyone’s life is when you’re tossing and turning at two in the morning?

It’s that witching hour when you roll over and see the large red numbers on your electric bedside clock, and are immediately filled with dread because you know, no matter what you do from here, you will still be awake in an hour, or even two.

You get caught in the hope that this time will be different, THIS time you’ll be able to drop back into the land of nod, all whilst the deep and rhythmic breathing of your bedfellow drives you between despair and fury that sleep comes and stays so easy for them.

And it’s in those moments when even the house has settled and its silence pulls at you like a vacuum, your brain takes off on a mad dash, busily running through lists of things you still need to do.

Did I book the third kid in for her flu vax, where the hell is my husband’s one and only good tie, and ‘Damn it! … I forgot to get garbage bags while at the shops yesterday!’

Ten minutes later I’ve moved on from the doable and am busy creating ridiculous scenarios that will never, ever, happen.

The fear of ensuring the happiness and safety of my children spirals from worrying about their future friendships at school, to what I’d do if a meteor suddenly fell from the sky and I had to save them from certain death.

Now when I wake up grumpy, my husband just looks at me and says, “Are you thinking about the meteor again?”

Yeah. Laugh it up Snoozy.

It’s around the 20-minute mark when the darker thoughts come. Those moments that have clearly stuck with you – many times without you realising it – rise through the fog, unbidden and unwanted, until it’s all you can think about.

You remember the time in grade four that you got in trouble for taking someone else’s lunch, the times you wished you had responded differently to a teammate, a partner, and had made different decisions.

Does anyone else think back to arguments – sometimes years old – and imagine actually delivering the well-crafted come-back that escaped you in that moment, this time getting the mic-dropping knockout blow?

Finally, through lots of conversations and some serious soul searching, I found my solution

And then comes your job.

I had a surprisingly comforting discussion with South Australia’s new Premier Peter Malinauskas in the final week of the election campaign.

He was waiting with me to go on radio the day after a big leader’s debate, to deliver his last-ditch pitch about why he should be in charge of our future.

I asked him simply: “How did you sleep?”

He replied: “I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had since this campaigning started.” And then went on to describe how he had been waking up at two every morning, not being able to shut off his mind.

Then he added: “And the worst thing about it all is that I’m thinking about everything I have to do and want to do, yet I don’t actually get up out of bed, even though I’m not going to be able to get back to sleep.”

Well Peter, I hear you!

Suddenly, I didn’t feel so alone, and we were riffing about the different things we had tried to get through it.

I had tried everything: from writing down lists, to meditation (which I still need to work on daily), to listening to podcasts, to getting straight up and running on a treadmill.

I researched everything while looking for my elusive circadian rhythm and worked out the difference between my hypothalamus and the big things I used to take the kids to see at the zoo.

R.E.M is not just a band anymore and I know my suprachiasmatic nucleus won’t blow up the world.

The lights were dimmed from early afternoon and screens put down. I bought new sheets and pillows to ‘create a haven’ as one hastily Googled article suggested.

I even looked into, and considered, sleeping tablets but ruled them out as I couldn’t quite work out what would happen if I took one at two and then had to be up at four.

The maths was doing my head in.

I had hoped that I was a sleep unicorn – one of those rare individuals that could thrive on just a few hours.

They tend, though, to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies or great historical figures like Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin or Nikola Tesla.

I’m not sure a local columnist or breakfast radio host lives in that company.

Then I started to understand just how bad it is for your health to not sleep well and, after learning the recommended needs for adults float somewhere between seven and nine hours, I knew things had to change.

Since I hadn’t found a way to turn myself off from having to be across every bit of news and information, I had to remove myself from that situation.

Finally, through lots of conversations and some serious soul searching, I found my solution, which – as drastic as it seems – was to quit my previous job.

Make no mistake, there were lots of reasons I made that decision, however, there is no escaping that the stress involved in my day-to day life was seeping into my night life.

I had to be across everyone from Prime Ministers to musicians, from local cat by-laws to COVID policy.

I wasn’t able to balance that with everything else going on in my family’s life and the need, largely driven by fear if I’m honest, to be one step ahead of everyone and everything.

Since I hadn’t found a way to turn myself off from having to be across every bit of news and information, I had to remove myself from that situation.

I’ve found a job that still brings pressure and needs me to be at the top of my game, however, I’m sharing that with an on-air team, so I find it a bit easier to put down the load at the end of my day.

And guess what?

I slept through straight away and have been able to do so ever since.

So … what’s the message in all this?

It’s certainly not to up and quit your job… that’s only what worked for me.

Instead, I just wanted to reach out to those of you who might be awake in those early hours, and let you know there are others with you.

So maybe, I hope, you don’t feel quite so lonely after all.

Ali Clarke presents the breakfast show on Mix 102.3. She is a regular columnist for InDaily.

Ali left her position as ABC Radio Adelaide breakfast presenter at the end of 2021.