Here’s another longtime insomniac (like Annie-Xmas my mom caught me reading in the middle of the night starting at age 4).
Chronic, lifelong insomnia is pretty damn hideous. Yes, there’s the obvious feelings that porcupine mentioned: drowsiness, feeling generally ‘out of it’ during the day and decreased performance.
But the mental part of it is the real hell. I’m often angry and frustrated, not to mention obsessed with sleep. Not angry at others, mind you, but with myself alone. My friends and family are only vaguely aware that I have a problem. I once met another major insomniac who said that from time to time she contemplated suicide, although she knew that was a cry from a flustered brain that needed a massive change and not a real desire to die. I agreed with her completely. It’s hard to put into words the way it feels to lie there night after night, trying not to watch the clock or think about anything that might make your pulse increase in the smallest way. And yes, I’ve tried many of the above suggested solutions. They worked for a few nights and then my stupid, stupid, SCREWED UP HEAD won out and it was back to finding faces in the stucco ceiling and mentally building houses. PLEASE don’t get me wrong - the ideas mentioned above are excellent and empirically valid and have helped many people. I’m just a special breed - specially messed up, that is! crooked grin
There is a solution for me somewhere. Maybe I need to try some of the above again, tinker with dosages and times until I get it right. Ironically, last night was the first time I got seven hours of unbroken sleep in many months and I was in a state of near-euphoria all day today. Wish I knew how I got all that sleep, but it probably won’t happen again for a looong time. Oh well. Onwards.
P.S. I have one theory about my problem- my body temperature rises around 11PM - Midnight, which is when it falls for most people, thus preparing them for sleep. And since my “normal” temprature is well below 98.6F, trying to cool off during this time would probably not be very good. But that’s just a theory, and anyone is welcome to poke loads of washing-machine-size holes in it…
I concur with those who suggested using melatonin, we utilize this in treating people with autism who often exhibit erratic sleeping patterns. It is so much better than other pharmaceutical products.
Taking a warm bath helps me as it raises your core temperature which can result in a more satisfying sleep for many people.
Nothing has been working for me lately, a friend has been very ill and my stress level has also been increased by an incredible amount to do at work.
I did manage to get caught up on a ton of work today, my friend is really improving and I took a long nap with my daughters this morning. I am in a really good mood tonight and think I’ll get some decent zzzz’s just as soon as daughter #1 falls asleep.
I don’t really consider myself an insomniac. Still, I’m the kind of person who has trouble shutting my brain down for the night and finally drifting off. I used to take melatonin every night to get me asleep at a decent hour, but it was taking larger and larger doses to make me sleepy. I stopped, because I didn’t want to develop a habit or anything (Hey, it COULD happen, I guess.)
My strategy lately has been to turn off everything electronic in the room (except the alarm clock!), lie on my back with my hands folded across my chest, and count backwards from 100, being very careful to go slowly and take two deep breaths between every number. I usually drift off around 30 or so.
Of course, there are always nights like last night, where I fade from exhausted to hyper and back again, and I can’t get to sleep until quarter 'till five and the alarm goes off at six so I can make it to work by seven. I HATE those nights. I was so tired this morning that I had a dream incorperating the sound of my alarm clock going off. (Something about…I don’t even remember what it was about, but it was a bad dream no matter how you slice it.) When I finally woke to turn it off, I saw that it had been going off for 15 minutes and I was going to be late for work. Hope I don’t fall asleep on the table at the blood drive today!
A lot of people get relief from bedside sound machines. They emit white noise (a steady soft static) or various nature sounds (wind in the trees, waves on the beach, babbling brooks, etc.) Or buy a nature sounds tape and play it on a tape recorder by the bed. Listen to the waves on the beach and visualize yourself sunning at the seaside, or listen to the wind in the trees and imagine yourself camping.
This one is generally more for people aged 30 or more: It’s common to be kept awake by a cranky stomach (feelings of gassiness, raw emptiness, tightness, or excessive acidity). It’s also common to be awakened by these same stomach problems after a few hours of sleep (about the time the stomach finishes digesting supper and becomes completely empty and raw). People sometimes have a minor case of gastritis which doesn’t particularly bother them during the day but hampers sleep at night. For a light sleeper, even very minor stomach discomfort can be enough to hinder sleep. Solution: Take a couple over-the-counter Zantac before going to sleep at night.
Long-term sleep deprivation can become a contributing factor to various illnesses that generally fall under the heading of chronic fatigue disorders. I bring this up because one poster mentioned muscle aches. One type of fatigue disorder is called fibromyalgia, and one of the symptoms is deep muscle pains (sometimes it feels like the pains are even down in the bone) that seem to shift from place to place over time. It tends to hit people in their 30s and 40s or later rather than young people, and it can effectively cripple the sufferer in its most severe forms. More generally, I just want to caution people that chronic insomnia (lasting over a period of a couple years or more) can have negative health consequences. If the insomnia goes on too long, it may be time to see a doctor.
I’m not an expert on sleep disorders and I don’t work in the medical field. These are just some things I’ve seen first-hand among family and friends.