Have you ever spent a night tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling as sleep evades you, only to hear the birds singing outside after what only feels like an hour? You’re not alone in your insomnia.

Axar.az reports citing NHS, struggling to fall – or stay – asleep is a common problem for one in three people in the UK. But a lot of what we think we know about sleep, says Dr. Rahul Jandial, M.D., Ph.D., a dual-trained brain surgeon, and neuroscientist, is actually wrong. Excellent news.

“As a surgeon, I’ve taken out the region of the brain that makes melatonin and people still sleep just fine. Good sleep is actually based on a circadian rhythm: plants, animals, nature, all of us are in tune with it – we live on a planet that has day and night, and our bodies should be in sync with that. Insomnia, or having a hard time sleeping, is because people aren’t.”

“Besides tech habits, stress, worry, and anxiety also majorly get in the way of sleep – those conditions release chemicals that are the equivalent to coffee or cocaine. It’s easy for these excitatory and stimulatory chemicals to become habitual too.”