So, when the Daily News offered to hook her up with sleep stylist Rachel Bookbinder and psychologist and WebMD sleep expert Michael Breus, Graeser gladly flung open the doors to her boudoir.
"I want to sleep. I want to be tired [at night]. I want to go to bed at 10 o'clock at night," Graeser told me. "It takes me an hour to go to sleep. I can't turn my brain off."
Enter our sleep team.
Breus, whose specialty is treating nonmedical insomnia, is the author of The Sleep Doctor's Diet Plan: Lose Weight through Better Sleep. Bookbinder is a professional sleep stylist who works for Sleepy's, the mattress retailer.
Their goal: To see if they could improve Graeser's "sleep hygiene" and to get her to fall asleep in 30 minutes or less and stay asleep for five to six hours.
"It's not going to be an overnight fix," Breus warned Graeser during a telephone consultation. "But there are some techniques I can teach you to help you turn your brain off."
When we met her, Graeser was sleeping on two crappy full-size mattresses atop a box spring.
That was the first thing that had to go.
Our team arranged for the delivery of a queen-sized, pillow-top mattress designed by the sleep doctor himself. Breus' signature bed, which Sleepy's sells for $2,499, is designed to give users a feeling of zero gravity, yet maintain a feeling of firmness. It also has something called a thermo-neutral design that helps sleepers maintain their body temperatures.
Bookbinder began her sleep styling magic by covering the bare mattress with a waterproof cloth protector by Fabrictech. Next, she pulled out new sheets by WildBleu, which help sleepers stay dry - a real plus in this summer's heat.
