Sleep...overrated or underestimated?

I think my answer to the above question truly depends on the day. I have had some of the worst experience with sleep. I love sleep, so please don't think that I try to avoid it. I have never been one to take naps, and I physically can't even when I try, and I find it physically impossible to sleep past nine in the morning. I am a "driver," meaning I like to get things done now instead of later. When my head hits the pillow at night, my eyes, unlike most people's, remain wide open, practically impossible to keep closed. And, even though my room is pitch black, I find it hard to fall asleep.
When I was younger, I hated going to be or taking naps or even sleeping in the car for fear that I might miss something important. In high school, all my friends were unavailable to do things in the morning on the weekend or over breaks because they were sleeping in. I, on the other hand, thought it was great when I woke up at eight! I honestly find sleeping in a form of laziness for me. Now, I am not saying that people who do sleep in are being lazy. I feel guilty when I sleep in because I know that I have limited hours in my day and a list of things to accomplish. Some people, mothers in particular, will probably like to advise me to get all the sleep I can now because once motherhood hits, sleep is a necessary luxury that you will hardly ever experience.
The past year or so, sleeping has become an issue that I have become very aware of. One night, in particular, I went to bed on time because I had to be up at 4:30 for work the next morning. Two hours later and quite a bit of tossing and turning, I found myself still wide awake and unable to sleep. I even went the distance of counting backward from 2,000! When I made it to zero, I wanted to cry, not because I was exhausted or that it was a hugely large task to tackle, but because I could not figure out how to get that much needed rest I knew I would need.
Many, many months, a bit of research, a few experiments, and many late evenings and early mornings later, I have figured out a few things about my "sleep pattern." I am what some would call a "blackberry queen." I do not own a blackberry, but I own a cell phone and a laptop which help connect me to my family and friends as well as the rest of the world. I would not say that I am addicted to either of these things, but I do spend most of my alone time on them. This title does not fully mean that I am a technology addict; it also implies that I have a busy mind (to say the least). I will drive around town, sit on the couch, be in the shower, or lay in bed and be constantly thinking about what I need to do next in my day which sparks the thought about the things that come after the first task which might spark the memory of someone which will lead me to think about other things related to that (all this while still making my continuously changing "to do list" for that day). My brain does not stop, and when I think about trying to slow my thought processes down a little, it only begins to produce more thoughts at a much higher pace. Thanks to my never ending thought processes, I am unable to fall asleep, and stay asleep.
Though I have not actually found a cure to my sleep issues, I have found a few things that have helped tremendously. I listen to solo piano music at least an hour before bed and make sure that all electronics are off and if the phone is charging, its face down so I cannot see the glow. I then proceed to think about the things that I must do right when I wake up, but then distract my mind with something good that happened that day. So far, I have actually fallen asleep within an hour of my head gracing my pillow!