[magduf]

>When I first started dating my now wife I slept better than I've ever slept before. ... Since then with buying a house, moving, job changes, owning cats, and a litany of other stressors, my sleep quality has substantially diminished.

How could owning cats hurt your sleep quality? I have 3 of them and they're fine; they never bother me at night.

Buying a house, however, is really horrible for your stress level. Now that I'm no longer married and no longer own a house, I do find that I have far, far less stress in my life than back then. Being single, too, has been great for reducing stress. (The takeaway here is: don't marry the wrong person.)

[dasil003]

I once owned adolescent cats that would chase each other around the house at night. One time as my wife and I slept, the pursuit led them over top of the bed; one of them used the side of my head and neck as a bank turn for a rapid change of direction at full speed. Thankfully the angle was such that I did not receive any claw marks to the face, but it definitely impacted my sleep quality.