I'd love to know what % of people with sleep problems have office/desk type jobs where their biggest exertion of the day is carrying a briefcase to and from the car. I bet it's a high %. I flipped the old early to bed, early to rise motto and it works for me. - Wake up early and workout - Get some fresh air during the day. Get outside you sheltered fucks. - Eat something that takes digestion energy for dinner. Salad a day? Have it for lunch. Eat some protein for dinner. - Buy a comfy bed. Seriously your mattress isn't meant to last a decade. You spend 6-8 hours a day in the thing, get one that doesn't hurt your ability to sleep. When all else fails smoke/vape some weed put on some water running, nature sounds, whale calls and relax. You'll be asleep in no time.
This is the best way to go to sleep. See that book you are reading? Shut it. Computer you are using? Turn it off TV? Shut it down. Lights? Shut them off. Phone? Turn it to silent. Do not touch these under any circumstances. You will fall asleep. The problem with sleeping now is that we have too many gosh darn distractions. Alternative method. Shut the book, turn off the tv, kill the lights, set phone to silent, grab tissue. Find dirty movie you enjoy. Use tissue. Shut computer. Go to bed. Do not under any circumstances undo what you have already done. The problem is distractions. You have too many of them. I feel like the phone and the laptop are the main one. If I'm chatting or texting or playing words withe friends, I don't get tired.
Last night i only got two or three hours of sleep. The night before i slept for eleven. For me that's just the way it goes. I don't ever take naps during the day because then I can't sleep at night. It's 3pm here now and I'm sort of tired but I'll wait until tonight to sleep.
When I want to go to sleep... I close my eyes and lay down. I couldn't tell you the last time it took me more than 30 seconds to go to sleep after I'd decided it was time to get some shut eye. Back when this wasn't the case, the most effective thing I found was just thinking about something entirely ridiculous and entirely unimportant. If I was having trouble sleeping it was because my mind was busy fretting over some aspect of my life that was not in order... thinking about a large, pink, elephant shaped balloon floating over the heads of a bunch of elves... zonked. I do have an awful time trying to stay in bed past 5:00 am. Which drives the fiance nuts on weekends.
I suffered from depression for the last 2 years (pretty much cured now) and, for the first time in my life, I couldn't sleep. I'd sleep 3-4 hours a night from accumulated exhaustion and nothing would work. I tried changing my eating habits, going to sleep earlier/later, exercising differently, taking supplements (ZMA, melatonin, ...) without any success. I went to see a shrink and the same night I fell asleep for 12 consecutive hours. So yeah, shrinks work kids, shrinks work. At the moment I try to reduce my exposure to electrical light as much as I can (no alarm, windows covered with dark sheets, using candles to go around the apartment, ...) before I go to bed and during my sleep. It's working so far. This small application works pretty well on your computer screen: http://stereopsis.com/flux/. It shuts blue light off during the night, so your body doesn't feel like you're staring at the sun at 3am.
How about turning your monitor off? I used to have rampant insomnia and was on Rx sleep meds. For a long time I self medicated with Nyquil and then my mom came to visit and found out about my little habit & made me go see a doctor. During college if I was up really late, I would just stay up so I would go to sleep at a decent hour that night (instead of going to bed really late and sleeping during the day). Several people have said this already but your bed should be for sleep and sex only. Also, if you can't fall asleep, don't lay there... get up and do something & try again later. I can't remember where I learned this trick but it helps your body relax - Starting at your toes, flex each muscle and hold it, moving up your body until every muscle is tense. Hold for a few seconds and then release. Now I sleep like a champ. I normally go to bed between 11:30 & 12:30 and get up between 7:30 & 8:15. I hardly ever get up during the night and I rarely remember dreaming. I usually have a movie on and the sleep timer set but sometimes go with the sound machine (although I can go to sleep when it's dead quiet too) and a fan on is nice too.
I have same issue with my wife, only I use the Ambien on her in order to kill two birds with one stone. I have to agree here - sex puts me right to bed, especially if I've had a stressful day and I'm still thinking about work. Sometimes while I'm pounding her, I shout out 2011 budget goals.
My mind races all day and doesn't stop when I get into bed. Sometimes I'll try melatonin (I don't know how much to take, I take 1mg), my doctor also gave me a prescription for Klonopin because he said stress is hurting my stomach. Sometimes I take .5mg before bed but I don't think it really does anything (maybe I should take 1mg). Ambien works sometimes but doesn't knock me out for more than 5 hours. Booze definitely doesn't help at all, if I drink, I will be tossing and turning all night. Sex seems like the most helpful thing.
I take melatonin too. I started because one of my friends at work had it recommended to her to help her with seasonal depression. The science behind it sort of made sense to me, so I tried it out and am now a big fan. I do the three weeks on, one week off cycle and it really seems to be helping me out quite a bit. Before starting the regimen, my mind would absolutely race and I couldn't settle myself down. Up all night, never feeling truly rested, always puffy red eyed in the morning. Now it seems as though I just gently drift off into slumberland. It's awesome. I'm not tired the next morning and I'm having wickedly vivid dreams. Most nights I couple it with the soundscapes channel on fios but my noise of choice is snoring. I know it's totally weird but I think I'm the one girl in the world who actually prefers it if her man snores at night. I actually find myself waiting for him to fall asleep and take in that first "zzzzzz" before I totally relax and drift off. There's something insanely comforting about a good snore. If they made snore sound machines, I'd be first in line.
I have always been a champion sleeper. You could even call it excessive - left to my own devices I will sleep a solid 9/10 hours per night and anything less than 7 means you want to stay well the fuck away from this bitch on wheels in the morning. I have pulled exactly one all nighter in my life, in college to write a paper as many normal individuals do. I was such a tard the next day that my friends forced me to skip class and take a nap. And then I came to London, and I cannot fucking shake this jetlag. It was a big victory to fall asleep before 3 a.m. last night. We've been here a month and a half, so I know it's not actually jetlag. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that the culprit is the shitty ass bed in our furnished apartment. Seriously guys, your bed is your castle, invest wisely. The only saving grace to this POS is that I brought a set of our own sheets with us, and then went out and bought feather pillows because laying your head on a fucking solid block of foam at night is somewhere up there with waterboarding. Dear Brits: what the fuck is wrong with you? Foam is not comfy unless it is fancy Tempurpedic shit! Pillow tops, look into them! Dear cheap fuck who furnished this apartment: FUCK YOU!!
I know this won't work for everyone, but here goes: 1. Keep a constant routine. I find that if I mandate to myself that I go to sleep at 9:00 every night, I end up sleeping far better than going to sleep at 10 one night, then 8 the next, and so on. Even better is the fact that I wake up at 5:00 every morning without an alarm clock. 2. Only lie on the bed when you're actually going to sleep. When I lie down, my brain immediately goes "Well, it's time to sleep, I'm lying in the sleeping spot." 3. Exercise during the day, but don't do anything right before bed. If you pump yourself up, then it'll take a while to nod off.
I find it funny how people who have no problems sleeping always have the magic answer for those that do because they can't comprehend the phenomenon of not simply "falling asleep" when you are really tired. Guess what, it happens. Despite all of the helpful suggestions like working out, turning off the computer, tv, etc, it still happens. As a matter of fact, falling asleep can somehow be even more difficult when you are super tired. So, yes, I have difficulty sleeping and Ambien is the greatest creation ever. Does it make me a zombie at times, sure. But I get a good solid 7-8 hours and it is heavenly. Evidently I have never been a sleeper, my mom always tells stories about how she used to have to put me in a crib in the bathroom when I was a baby because I didn't sleep and kept my sisters (who I shared a room up with) awake. Prior to ambien I tried all of those wonderful behavioral suggestions, no luck. Funny thing is that one thing stuck, even with the chemical aids. Basically they really stress getting into a routine (sleep hygiene is the fancy term) so your body knows that it is sleepy time. So now, even though I don't smoke, I have one cigarette at night before going to bed. Oh, and the thing that I absolutely cannot do is fall asleep on a plane. Trust me I have tried everything, I have mixed enough sleep aids (Ambien, Benadryl, Xanax) to probably put an elephant down for a week and combined it with alcohol. Just can't do it. Usually I bring a book. Last time I flew to Europe, none of the seat lights would work, so that meant sitting in the dark with absolutely nothing to do while everybody around you was snoring (although I don't know if I really believe that it wasn't the flight attendants doing). Longest 6 hours ever. I would love to go to New Zealand, but I just can't bring myself to commit to that plane trip. That is a long time to go without
I always turn the lights out about an hour before I plan to go to sleep. If the lights are on, I can stay up until 3 or 4 in the morning without getting tired, but as soon as they're out, I can feel everything shutting down. I also fall asleep easily with the TV on. I think sound of people talking tells the caveman part of your brain it's okay to sleep, there are other people around to wake you up if a cougar attacks. But, it's always really crappy sleep when the TV is going, and I often wake up in the middle of the night disoriented.
Christ my sleep patterns are an absolute disaster. I also have the unfortunate problem of incessantly thinking when I'm not distracted. This is a problem all day long for me, not just when I'm trying to sleep. If I'm not doing something, I think myself crazy. It's not like I'm always worrying or anything...I just keep thinking and thinking and thinking myself into knots. It can be anything from analyzing social interactions, to some scientific theory that has caught my fancy, thinking up my own bogus theories, thinking about my research, thinking about a show I watched or song I listened to. The list goes on and on. For this reason, during the day I am always always doing something. I never let myself just sit there and think because I drive myself crazy. When I want to sleep, it has to be with music playing or a show on. Without something to keep my mind busy, I never fall asleep. The biggest issue is that it has to be something I haven't memorized every word of or else I tune it out and get inside my own head again. For this reason, I also end up consuming a ridiculous quantity of tv shows, music, and podcasts. Even with all this, given what my life is like, I haven't had a "sleep schedule" for years. As early as middle school I would be staying up until 1-2 in the morning. When college rolled around, I was up till 3-4 in the morning then napping in the afternoon. When I'm on break, even though I always try not to let it happen, I'm usually awake until 7-8 in the morning and then in bed until 3-4 in the afternoon. If someone saw just that aspect of my life, they'd assume I was a complete loser. Nowadays, schoolwork keeps me occupied, but as all students know, it tends to come in spurts. So sometimes I'll stay awake for 2 days straight (not all of it is spent doing work, it's just that my mind becomes so occupied with thinking about what's on my plate that I just won't be able to sleep, even with all the distractions). Then I'll sleep for a ridiculous amount of time to catch up. Often times I become convinced that my internal body clock is 26 hours long because, if nothing else is going on, I'll stay up about 2-3 hours later than the night before each day, and then that wave will keep circulating through the days such that for a week or so, I'll be on normal human time and on the opposite end on the cycle I'll be up all night and sleep all day. Plotting my sleep is just a constant never ending battle for me. It fucking drives me insane. I would give up so much to be able to shut everything off and sleep from 10-6 every day.
To my educational, professional and entertainment(al) detriment, I've basically trained myself unintentionally to read myself to sleep. I did this back in 7th and 8th grade when I was having problems sleeping on a shitty bed I had from age 5-21 until I moved out. I've also play Sony PSP until I fall asleep. But...as it has been mentioned before, sex and working one out helps the most. I also find that even if I don't have sex, if I'm sleeping with a girl, I fall asleep faster. It also helps now that my new job requires me to get up at 6:30 in the morning. Weird thing is I keep waking up at 6, thirty minutes before my alarm, completely awake regardless of what time I sleep.
Seriously, they call it a sleeping DISORDER for a reason. Motherfucker I can work out three times a day, unplug every single thing in my bedroom that emits any light, take an ice bath and have a set schedule and can still not sleep properly. The cure-alls that people who had a night or two in a row of being awake until 2 AM when they wanted to be in bed by 11 spout always crack me the fuck up. Personally, like several members on this board I've been using Melatonin lately because it doesn't make me groggy in the morning like other sleeping pills, but I have to take 4 or 5 of them to go out and even then I'll wake up sporadically during the night. Luckily I'm usually more energetic off 4 hours of sleep than most people I know on 8. The funny thing is my job is incredibly low stress, so I know that's not the issue.
Sounds like a lot of folks here ruminate. I ruminate on an occasional basis, when stressed or overwhelmed. For the longest time I didn't know what it was, and simply described it as a feeling of restlessness. I didn't have the vocabulary to express the feeling until I got into a graduate program. I would take long drives through the back roads (12am to 4am) to try and clear my mind, but it doesn't always work. Therapy can help with that, and even if it isn't therapy, just talking to someone about the thoughts that are racing through your mind can help.