I haven’t slept more than 5 hours a night for a week. I have a major test in 5 hours that is vitally important to my future, and I just. Can’t. Fall. Asleep. And the neighbor’s fucking windchimes right outside my bedroom window sound like a xylophone quartet on crack. CLANK CLANK CLANK*
Fuckshitpissdamnhell. 
I can’t generally make myself WANT to sleep. Not sure if that’s the same thing or not, but there it is.
I’m planning to graduate from college next week. I have three final exams. They are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 7:50 a.m. I know millions of people, including my own father, get up before 7 a.m. each day, but I am terrified. I think what I am going to do is, starting Monday, go to sleep at 1 or 2 p.m., wake up whenever, stay up all night, take the final, go home and repeat.
The upside is that my career will most likely have me working second shift, so I’m not terribly concerned for my long-term future. I have found that if I get to sleep by 2-4 a.m., I generally wake up sometime between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. If I try to sleep any other time, all bets are off.
The cure is in the title! 
I know the feeling. I got a good 12 hours of sleep last night, yet I’m still tired and yawning today. All because a bout of insomnia kept me up until 3.30am the night before, and I had to get up at 6.45.
Blah.
Wrap cellotape around the chimes. Get a loud fan and turn it on (uniform noise helps sleep and masks out non-uniform noise)
And be lucky you get sooo much sleep anyway! 5 hours? I’d kill for 5 hours.
Have you done this before? I have tried this many times, and I usually fail. Breaking your natural sleep cycle, how ever fucked up it is, is a bad idea. You can get away with it for one day, maybe two, but three? I don’t think you are going to make it.
If you go to bed at 1 PM, you will wake up around 8 or 9, feeling fanfuckingtastic, then by 4 AM, you will be exhausted, and want to sleep more. You might make it to your tests, but your brain will be fried.
You will also be out of whack for a week while your body gets back on schedule.
I’m doing it now, actually. I recently quit my job (second shift), and started doing it a few days later, albeit not as stringently as I will next week (hence my being awake right now). Seems to be working out ok. Those three tests are the only obligations I have next week, so I can get as much sleep as I want – I just have to plan to do it at the right time.
I have a unit designed for exactly that and it performs its intended function perfectly. It’s a small, enclosed “fan-like” device that is more energy efficient than an actual fan (and also doesn’t blow anything around) and it works far more effectively (in my opinion) than electronic models. It’s made by (or its name is) “Sleep Sound”.
I think I paid $30 for it 20 years ago, and it’s still working perfectly. Here’s a quickly selected ad for a similar model: White Noise Machine
Were you my roommate at Wofford Summer Camp in 1983?
Do you want some advice on fixing insomnia, or were you just ranting? I have some great ideas, but if you were just blowing off steam, that’s okay.
Preach it. Even solo should get you tired enough and send you to bed.
featherlou, let’s hear it. It’s two hours past my bedtime. My issue is anxiety. It’s embarrassing to admit it, but I can’t fall asleep because I don’t feel safe. I keep waiting for someone to come in and torture and murder me. For some reason as soon as my head hits the pillow, I think…
Hmmm, I’m tired… Holocaust… WWIII… Elizabeth Bathory… Eternal damnation in the fiery pits of hell…
I’m an optimist.
This isn’t a short term solution, but take a yoga class - not something like Birkham - something for relaxation. Something where a lot of the effort and energy is spent not on working up a sweat, but on learning to clear your mind.
The other thing is to have something stupid to think about - I like to plan my red carpet dress for when I win the Oscar for Best Actress. Its really hard to think about the Holocaust when you start wondering what the neckline will look like and what color it will be.
I feel for you. I go through bouts of insomnia sometimes too. Recently, for a few weeks, I was routinely getting 4-5 hours of sleep every weeknight, and on weekends, I would sleep in way too late and get like 12 hours. I don’t know why I was having so much trouble. It wasn’t really anything I was worried about. Plus, I have a fan in the room to block out unwanted noise. Sometimes I just cannot fall asleep even if I am tired. I have been through literally a dozen pillows (some old, some new) in recent months trying to get more comfortable at night. Last week I got a new one from Elder-Beerman called Isocool. I like it fairly well. I have been sleeping better since.
Anyway, good luck. I know how hard lack of sleep can make things.
Dangerosa your suggesions are very good. I just realized that I always used to fall asleep designing my perfect house. For the past few years I have lived in pretty much my perfect house and I no longer fall asleep with those thoughts – and I take forever to fall asleep! So, maybe I will begin designing something else. Perfect dress will not work as I don’t wear dresses and don’t have the perfect body for sure. Maybe I will plan what to say when my novel wins the National Book Award or something.
Is there any Yoga-on-tape you would recommend?
I plan what we will do when we win the lottery. How much we need to be set for life, how we would go about telling people, the trip to go get the cheque, every minute little detail.
The first step in fixing insomnia is your sleep hygiene. The bed, the pillow, the room, the clock beside you, all need to be in relaxing condition. I cover my bedside clock so the light doesn’t bother me - I have an alarm that goes off when it’s time to get up, and if it isn’t time yet, I don’t need to know what time it is - it’s sleeping time.
The second step is teaching yourself how to relax. As a society, we’re wound up tighter than a bunch of springs. Your body needs to re-learn the relaxation response. You can do this through progressive relaxation, yoga, meditation, or a combination of all three. Meditation is the best thing for a brain that won’t shut off.
ETA: I forgot the sleep routine. A set, relaxing routine before bed gives your body cues that we’re shutting down and going into sleep mode now.
Olives, when you get into scary thought mode, try breathing mindfully. You can’t think two things at once, and if you’re concentrating on your breathing, you’re not scaring yourself.
I rarely have a problem getting to sleep at the beginning of the night. But if I wake up anytime after ~3:30am (the alarm’s set for 6), I can forget about going back to sleep.
Typical wake-up time is 4:30 or so. And I typically turn out the light at around 10-10:30pm.
Foxtrot - have you tried using foam earplugs (like these or these) to reduce the windchime noise?
Unfortunately, no. I took a class or two. A lot of places will have drop in classes - or if you start a Yoga thread over in IMHO someone will come in with a tape suggestion.
The nice thing about the Oscar dress is I have nothing to fear that eventually I’ll wear the darn thing and be out of something to plan - not being an actress I have very little chance of winning the Oscar. If it ever happens, I’ll have to start planning something else.
Last year when I had horrible insomnia, neither of these worked. Nor did sleep hygenie, warm baths, OTC sleeping pills, warm milk - I started to get to hallucination stage…Ambien did work - and once I got a few nights sleep the insomnia went away.
I’ve tried foam earplugs… I just can’t sleep comfortably with things stuck in my ears. 
Plus, I’m afraid I won’t hear my alarm clock.
You have no idea how right you are that we are tightly wound in our society. I wish I could just relax sometimes and forget about what time it is, but I’ve a few alarm clock problems before (either turning off the alarm in some half-asleep stupor or forgetting to turn it on altogether). It hasn’t happened too often, but it’s happened enough that I’ll oftentimes shoot up in bed to make sure I didn’t oversleep.
Another insomnia sufferer checking in here.
Here it is, just after 3 in the morning, and I’m sitting here in front of my computer wide awake.
I’ve had sleeping problems for as long as I can remember – although they seem to have gotten worse in the past 5-6 years or so. It takes me forever to get to sleep – and most of the time I end up waking up in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep. I’ve pretty much gotten used to it by now, but it still sucks.