Insomnia

[golentan]

I hate it.

Been wrestling with it all week.

It's almost 3 am.

I slept, on average, about 5 hours every night for the past several days.

I'm so tired.

My head hurts.

My cat is worried about me.

My normal tricks for falling asleep have failed me.

And I keep accidentally trying to capitalize punctuation marks while typing this.

[Togath]

Supposedly, getting a lot of exercise helps.
In theory. I maybe kinda have similar issues to you.
Relaxing tea? Warm food?

[cobaltstarfire]

Exercise can help as long as you don't do it too near bedtime, otherwise it can have the opposite effect. (and if you use a gym, there's less people there in the morning anyway!)

Do you have a regime? It can help if you have one, particularly for going to bed. Like start to wind down, and go through a pattern of putting on your sleeping clothes, and brushing your teeth. Do this at or around the same time every night if you can.

What's your sleep hygene like? Do you read in bed, or use a smart device, watch tv, play games? If you do any of those things stop.

How soon after dinner do you go to bed? Eating too soon before bed time can mess with digestion and sleeping.


Have you tried sleep aids? If they don't work, or make you super groggy in the morning you may want to consider talking to your doctor, who can give you a script for a sleep medication. (Mostly personal experience here, OTC medicine helps me sleep but leaves me feeling groggy and unrested, I've only had a weeks worth of prescription sleep aid but it was the best sleep I'd had during that period of my life)


I've tried melatonin but I don't think it works for me (I'm unsure if there is much evidence for it either way). It can make some people groggy though so it may be worth trying.

Scented candles may work, make sure you only use them at bed time though, it's just another thing to add to your routine to tell your body that its bed time. Find a smell you like but isn't too strong or distracting, and of course don't leave it burning unattended.


These are all things that my councilor had suggested to me to help tackle my sleep related problems, the most important things is to have good sleep hygiene, and a consistent schedule, which may take time to establish. If the problem continues it'd be a good idea to see a doctor or have a sleep study done to make sure there isn't some other underlying issue.

edit: Oh! Also what is the lighting like in your room? You should try to have it as dark as possible, so if you have things in your room that produce light, find a way to make them not do that when you're trying to sleep.

[Traab]

There are so many potential causes and cures its insane. Bottom line, insomnia sucks, and it sucks hearing you are suffering from it. I find the best cure is to buy a 40 oz of beer, empty that garbage out, fill it with bourbon, then shotgun it when you want to sleep. I also suggest you never pay attention to my advice as its rarely a good idea. Even though it would totally work. For a given value of "sleep" at least. I figure not being awake is the textbook definition and guzzling 40 oz of bourbon will make certain you are not awake in short order.

[2D8HP]

Go from warm to cool. Hot bath, heated room etc. Then have your skin temperature slowly drop. I'm guessing you've had a spell of hot nights, where I live typically the coldest part of the day is sometime between 5AM to 8AM, and since it's usually still warm inside at a typical 9PM to Midnight bedtime this is a common problem.
One trick is to leave a window open in your bedroom (so it cools down), and warm up the bed with an electric blanket, climb in, and unplug the blanket.
Also it's August so we (in the Northern hemisphere) have long days, so try and limit your exposure to light, especially the blue/white tinted light that comes from screens such as TV's, phones and computers.
Try to find a no more than 60 watt incandescent bulb. If you must have a florescent or LED light, get one with a yellow tint.
Also get older! If your still in your 20's your probably just naturally a night owl. Typically newborn babies, teenagers, and early 20 somethings are naturally nocturnal, and accommodating yourself to old men's schedules is a hardship (seriously just having high school classes start latter in the day improves the students test scores, but the teachers and staff don't like it).
And you can try reading "good to know" but incredible boring texts, I've found that reading the Plumbing Code and DMV manuals are sleep inducing.
Stay away from reading Giantitp.com except for when you usually want to be alert!

[factotum]

If I'm having difficulty sleeping I'll actually go and sleep on an armchair in the next room rather than on my bed--for some reason I find it easier to drop off sitting up. I don't think the actual sleep I get in that position is as good as proper bed sleep, but it's better than no sleep at all.

[golentan]

Most of the advice is unapplicable, due to conflicts of health (I.E. being unable to drink, having panic attacks in proximity to sleeping pills), or experience (Yes, I am normally a night owl, I like going to sleep around midnight and waking around 8:30, but I'm finding myself unable to sleep as late as 4 in the morning), or situation (had a spell of cold nights).

My normal solution has been during bad sleep periods to use white noise or ASMR to overcome it, but 's not working right now.

[thirsting]

I keep hearing (from medical professionals) that abstaining from use of any kind of devices with screens (computer/phone/tv) for a few hours before bed-time is supposed to help, but can't verify this claim. I'm unable to do it!

[cobaltstarfire]

Most of the advice is unapplicable, due to conflicts of health (I.E. being unable to drink, having panic attacks in proximity to sleeping pills), or experience (Yes, I am normally a night owl, I like going to sleep around midnight and waking around 8:30, but I'm finding myself unable to sleep as late as 4 in the morning), or situation (had a spell of cold nights).

My normal solution has been during bad sleep periods to use white noise or ASMR to overcome it, but 's not working right now.

You should probably go and try to work it out with a proper doctor then, because this thread has given you pretty much all of the common advice for dealing with insomnia.

You being a night owl doesn't really matter, if your natural cycle is to go to bed at midnight, then aim for going to bed at midnight.

I've found that one thing that helps for me, is to try to get to bed about when I first start to feel sleepy/tired. Because if I stay up too long past that I hit my "second wind" and end up unable to sleep no matter how tired I feel, which ends in me staying up till I'm exhausted (which means staying up till about 8 or 9 the next morning).

[EarlGreystoke]

I'm normally a morning person. Then I worked nightshift for two years. Keh heh heh
There would be multiple days where I'd be unable to sleep, and would have to simply run myself to exhaustion, forcing my body to sleep eventually.
Also, whenever I was flipping between days and nights, I would either wake up promptly at 4am, or 4pm (relative to which way I was flipping) and be unable to go back to sleep.
My response? I decided to take two classes at the local community college, one of which caused me to be awake from Friday evening to Sunday morning (work-class-work). Take that you rebellious corporeal form, you!
I realize this post has far more solidarity than recommendations, and for that, you're welcome.

[Sparx MacGyver]

Sleep? What's that? I don't really sleep anymore. So, I did what any sane and normal person who gets aobut 2-4 hours of sleep a night would do. I started working 18 hour shifts. I figured since I'm not sleeping, I might as well get paid for it. I do miss sleep, but at least I'm getting some decent paychecks out of it. The rest of my time is filled with family, especially my son, and the rpg's I play/run, witha dash of various other hobbies thrown in for good measure.

It's not easy to do. I'm often very tired. Like, to the point of exhaustion and collapse, and to that end I usually come home and just crash on my bed. But the rub is, I might get 5 hours of sleep at most, and then wake up refreshed and ready to go - although this can happen if I only get two hours of sleepm as well. Hmmm...I wonder if not sleeping is my super power?