Insomniacs, how do you deal?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m having a nasty and prolonged tussle with insomnia and am wondering if any similarly afflicted dopers have any effective strategies for coping with this condition.

Here’s my situation: I am the lucky recipient of a delightful smorgasbord of entertaining anxiety disorders and phobias and, consequently, am rather prone to panic attacks, depressive episodes, and long, dark nights of the soul. All very good fun, I’m sure you’ll agree. As a bonus, I also have a head that won’t shut the fuck up when I tell it to.

Every so often, maybe once or twice a week or so, I find that I simply cannot fall asleep. Once I am asleep, I’m absolutely fine. It’s just initially nodding off which can be so problematic. Oftentimes when I’m having an “episode”, I’m fortunate enough that I can grab maybe one or two hours sleep. Last night, for example, I went to bed at around 01:00am and tossed and turned for about five hours until finally falling asleep from around 06:00 til about 07:30. After that, I pretty much slept the day away. Not a clever move, I know, as it means I’ll probably find it harder to sleep again tonight, but I was so exhausted I couldn’t help it.

However, I’m by no means guaranteed to get even a couple of hours. Unfortunately, if I get zero sleep then it somehow makes me much prone to panic attacks.

Anyway, this all sucks. To help me deal with this, I have a few questions for my fellow insomniacs:

  1. How common is it to go a whole night without sleep? From my Ladybird book basic understanding of the condition, the vast, overwhelming majority of insomniacs (like 99.9% or something) have absolutely no problem actually falling asleep. The trouble is that they keep waking up a dozen times a night and aren’t asleep long enough to get any real rest. I fully admit I may well be wrong about this as I’m just going by what I’ve dug up on google. What are your experiences? How common is it for you to go a whole night without sleep? How long does it take you to fall asleep when you’re having an episode?

  2. How do you cope? I know a lot of insomniacs practice “sleep hygiene” which, as I understand it, basically involves setting a routine around going to bed and not going into your bedroom unless necessary. This, unfortunately, isn’t very practical for me since I live in a one room bedsit and am therefore always in my bedroom from the moment I get home from work.

  3. Do you take any sleeping tablets? My doctor prescribed me some zopiclone the last time I had an episode. I’ve not taken any yet because I’ve not needed to as my episodes generally don’t last more than a couple of days. But if you do, do they work? I mean, do you actually feel well rested in the morning? Also, what does it actually feel like to take one? Is it like a general anaesthetic where you just conk out, or what?

  4. Do you worry about whether you’re going to fall asleep or not? This is a particularly troubling phenomenon. Since I know that there are likely to be adverse consequences if I don’t sleep (in the form of marathon screaming fucking panic attacks) I tend to get anxious about whether or not I’ll get any sleep. This, hilariously, keeps me awake, exacerbating the anxiety and so in a geometrically perfect vicious circle. Is this a common concern among insomniacs? If so, how do you deal?

Anyway, those are the questions which are bugging me at the moment. Any input and advice will be hugely appreciated.

2

Hey, George, good luck with that. I suffer from it sometimes, too.
I just wind up staying up all night, though. I gave up trying to fight it, so I don’t think I’d be able to offer anything of value.

[modding]I’m going to kick this over to IMHO, though, because that’s usually where the medical/ailment/advice topics go[/modding]

3

Oh my, I read this with such empathy and understanding. My oh my I sure did. First of all, I have been a lifelong insomniac and my problem is almost exclusively difficulty in ever being able to get to sleep in the first place. Once I am asleep I am fine.

  1. While it is relatively uncommon to go an entire night without any sleep, it has and does occur. For me, it’s the result of several insomnia-inducing factors combining; migraine headache along with the anxiety of whether or not I will be able to fall asleep along with the nonstop chatter in my head has made me unable to sleep for days at a time. And this is seriously a fucked up experience, it’s like you are going insane. And interestingly enough, if I have had a long string of intractable insomnia, my inability to get to sleep is almost hard-wired into my brain and it takes that much longer to ever get back to any semblance of normal sleep patterns. It can be a vicious cycle.

  2. You just do. Routines and regularity are very important. Going to bed at the same time is important. Exercise helps. A good diet does too.

  3. NO! Ahh, I hate sleeping meds. For me, they dont even work, they get me groggy as hell and unable to do anything but lie there in a semi-conscious heap and WISH I were able to get to sleep; but I can absolutely NEVER cross over that last little barrier to the blissful land of dreams. Ambien is the worst. That shit is crazy. Perhaps sleeping meds help others but not me.

  4. This is honestly probably the biggest obstacle to be able to get to sleep; worrying about being able to get to sleep. I know EXACTLY how you feel here, exactly. It is totally maddening. You need to get to sleep dammit! You brain and your body better start getting in line and get to fucking sleep! But of course that just gets you all rigid and tense and anxious; the last state of mind conducive to falling asleep. I have no answers here. Relaxation techniques perhaps.

4

I rarely sleep more than 4-5 hours a day (or night, if you prefer). I read a lot, play guitar, play games online, etc. If I’m in the mood, I can get a lot of song writing and recording done at night. On the rare stretches where I do sleep more than that (sometimes I can go a couple of months of 6-8 hours sleep per day), it’s bliss. Otherwise, I just try and use the time to have fun or be more productive.

5

You have a lot of company in the night, I think, especially among people who suffer from the constellation of disorders you described so delightfully. I’m a chronic insomniac and all too familiar with those nights of 5 hours trying to sleep and 2 hours–or 0 hours–of actual sleep. Depending on mood or time of year or whether it rained in Tuskegee that day, I have trouble either getting to sleep or staying that way, and both types of insomnia are horribly incapacitating for anyone trying to live a “normal” life. I hope you can find a solution, because being able to maintain a good sleep schedule will help with all of the other fun stuff you listed at the beginning of your post.

I think the sleep hygiene idea can be helpful, but it’s not the answer for everybody. Still, it can’t hurt, so you might just want to arrange your space so your sleeping space is as reserved for sleep as you can make it, maybe by screening it off from the rest of the space somehow. Try not to lie down on your bed to use your computer or read (:eek: I know, right?) and only lie down when you are intending to go to sleep.

I’ve found that meditation techniques and mindfulness exercises have been the most helpful non-pharmaceutical remedies. See if you can’t find yourself a good CD aimed at helping you focus attention and relax. When I have trouble getting to sleep, it’s usually because my brain wants to go on and do things without my permission, and being able to draw down my focus just onto my breathing (or whatever) helps a bit with that. Finally, before you head for the commercial sleeping aids aisle at the local pharmacy, look into melatonin. A lot of people swear by it as a sleep aid. However, I’d advise checking in with your MD before trying it, especially if you’re using other medications.

Regarding #4, yes! I about drive myself insane worrying about not falling asleep. I’ve learned to structure my life so that an occasional night without sleep won’t do too much damage, but there are times that I have to go off and do something important on no sleep at all and it does make me much more anxious. I think the meditation/mindfulness stuff helps me with that, though, because even when I haven’t slept enough I’m much more relaxed about it.

Good luck to you. I hope you get some good advice…and some good sleep!

6

I could change my username to Up All Night. I tend to wake up at 4 AM after going to sleep shortly earlier, and I stay up until I get sleepy again, which is usually around 7. I just accept sleep as something I can’t control , and I try not to apply too much control over it because it comes when it wants to.

7

Sorry you’re dealing with such a frustrating problem, GK. As someone who’s also dealt with anxiety and insomnia, I can empathize. You don’t mention whether or not you’re on anti-anxiety meds. If you’re not, you might consider asking your doctor about them. When I was on them, sleep came more easily. I assume you’ve already tried melatonin and such, right?

Sleeping pills, even the OTC ones, tend to make people feel groggy in the morning. I took Ambien for awhile. It wasn’t like general anesthesia. That is, it didn’t WHOMP! knock me out; it was more like I fell asleep much sooner and without working at it. I still had dreams and everything. I found it best to take them fairly early in the evening (unless I was driving or something), as I was less likely to be zoned the next morning. I think sleep meds can be useful for a very short-term aid, like 2 or 3 nights, max.

#4 seems almost universal among insomniacs. I used to lie there thinking, "Oo! I felt a little sleepy there! Maybe I’m going to sleep! Am I going to sleep? " I’d get just excited enough by the possibility of sleep that I couldn’t sleep. Ugh. What helped me there was realizing that when sleep comes, it comes as a natural consequence of deep relaxation. So I focus on getting into that state of deep relaxation without sleep as the ultimate goal. I also find it helpful to distract my mind from that hyper-vigilant am-I-sleepy?-mode by focusing on serene memories from my childhood.

I don’t have insomnia nearly as often as I used to, thanks to 1) getting plenty of vigorous exercise and 2) getting out of a very bad marriage.

Best of luck! You have my sympathy.

8

I don’t find that the sleep hygiene things work so well for me with the exception of the advice to get up and do something else if not sleeping within 20 or 30 minutes rather than lie there tossing and fretting. I get up and try to find something fairly boring to read.

At one point in my life I slept much better with clothes on and on top of covers instead of in bed in pajamas, but that doesn’t work for me any more; you might try it though. I do find that going to a different spot (couch, spare room) sometimes helps but I can see that won’t help much.

Good luck. And whatever you do, try (I know, I know) not to fret about not sleeping as we all know how much worse that makes things. (If I go to sleep right now I can get five hours. Four hours. Two hours. Ugh!)

ETA I am currently getting more exercise than I have for years and my insomnia is far worse than it has been for years, so that didn’t help me at all. YMMV.

9

My mother was a lifelong insomniac. I remember coming in from playing one summer to find her crying - she was in the middle of a 2 week bout and was absolutely miserable.

I’m chronically sleep deprived but I don’t have insomnia, I just work too much. Plus I have the internet. The only bout I’ve ever had was after having surgery - 10 days of not being able to fall asleep OR stay asleep. I was at my wit’s end.

You all have my deepest sympathy. I can’t imagine what it’s like to live with it :frowning:

It doesn’t offer any answers about how to fix insomnia, but “Insomniac” by Gayle Greene is fantastic.

Something I’m curious about … how do your doctors treat your insomnia? Do they just ignore you? My mom NEVER could get a doctor to take her seriously about it and they refused to prescribe anything because “they’re addictive.” (Except Ambien, which she had a really bad reaction to.) If you can’t sleep you can’t function - to me there are worse things than being dependent on something to knock you out.

10

From someone who suffers from insomnia - both “can’t get to sleep” and “can’t stay asleep”:

!) Bed is for sleep or sex. 10 minutes reading max before lights out.

  1. No daytime naps. None. Not even “I’ll just close my eyes”.

  2. No caffine 5 hours before bed. No chocolate. No iced tea.

  3. Milk. Cold. Milk contains melitonin, which is a sleep aid. Cold milk makes your body concentrate on warming and digesting the milk, which helps the brain relax.

  4. Visulation: Make a fantasy, or try to trace a dream. Put yourself in a book or TV show. If you find yourself focusing on something real-life, change it. Start with something you’d like to dream. You usually won’t, but you might!

If you are financially able to seek medical attention, do so. Insomnia is a sign of depression.

11

I used to go through bouts of insomnia, particularly in the summer.

That stopped once I started taking meds before bedtime. They work so well that I can’t really give you any advice.

I don’t take sleeping pills, though. They always hurt my head and don’t really give me a good night’s sleep.

12

I’ve had trouble sleeping my entire life; I rarely have trouble falling to sleep but I have a lot of difficulty staying asleep; if I sleep for a while (two house seems to be my magic number) and wake up for any reason, I’m up for the next eight to ten hours. When I was working, I managed to cope with it for a few days but now that I’m retired, I end up napping during the day and that makes sleeping at night all the more difficult. Loosing enough sleep causes me to have migraines; while I was working, it was a real problem.

I’ve tried a variety of prescription sleeping pills with no real help. Good luck.

13

I too suffer from anxiety and I pretty much cured lifelong insomnia using good sleep hygiene. I was taught techniques based on the work of the University of Pennsylvania sleep research clinic. It takes about a month of consistently doing it before it starts to help. But basically, you train your brain to fall asleep on command.

  1. Go to bed at the same time every night.
  2. Wear a sleep mask. Absolute darkness is necessary for your pineal gland to do its thing. (This took me forever to get used to, but now I consider it necessary.)
  3. Sleep between the hours of 11pm and 8am. Sleep during other hours just isn’t as good.
  4. Get into a routine - a cup of tea, a bath, a book, whatever - just something to signal sleepytime every night.
  5. When it’s time to sleep, close your eyes and slowly count backward from 50. Make sure you visualize the numbers as you think them - you want to occupy your brain visually as well as mentally. If you get all the way to zero, start over again. If your mind starts to wander, gently bring it back to counting. This is boring as hell. It’s supposed to be. The whole point is to bore your brain into falling asleep.
  6. If you wake up in the middle of the night, DON’T get up. Just keep breathing and counting. Eventually you will fall back asleep. (This was hard during the first month. It took me 30-60 minutes to fall asleep at first.)

Again, it takes a month of consistently using these techniques before your brain starts to ‘‘get it.’’ But now the difference in my sleep habits is amazing. I go to bed every night around 10-11pm and fall asleep in about 15 minutes (which is typical.)

14

You could see a doctor and/or a sleep clinic to see if there is a physiological condition.

IANADoctor, but there are a number of new non-barbituate sleep aids like Ambien. I have occaisional bouts of insomnia. I find that *half *an ambien puts me to sleep for 3-4 hours. So, if i wake up wide awake at 3:00 am, I can take a half, get some sleep and wake up at a normal time in the morning.

My 6 year old has sleep from hell. She gets a minimal does of a very mild hypertension medicine called Clonidine. She went from sleeping any time between 8:00 and midnight, and waking up for 2-5 hours about 2-5 times per week, to generally sleeping within 45 minutes of getting her evening dose. Life changer. Again, go see your doctor as they may be able to help you instead of suffering forever.

15

One strategy that helps me wind down is to listen to music, or other audio content. Believe it or not, I find that vintage dramatic radio broadcasts work well. The stories are interesting, and sometimes quite good; the slower pacing, compared with today’s entertainment, helps lull me to sleep.

16

I’ve had trouble sleeping most of my life - not too bad at getting to sleep, but I tend to wake a lot. Several years ago, I had some surgery which made sleeping very difficult, and I started using Tylenol PM (actually a cheap generic), which made a big difference.

Since recovering from the surgery (which took a year), I take just the PM part (Benadryl - or, rather, a cheap knockoff) by itself. Aside from a slight foul taste in my mouth in the mornings. this works very well for me. I go to sleep fairly well, and stay asleep. I do tend to wake early, however, probably because I’m sleeping more soundly.

17

Good suggestions. I am a borderline insomniac who often has trouble falling asleep – mind won’t shut down. Not that there’s much good up in there, but it’s enough to keep me up. I take drugs – doxylamine succinate (an antihistamine) and sometimes one or more xanaxes.

Also, crossword puzzles, a clock which does not tick and is brightly illuminated (so I can see what time it is if I wake up), a liter of water, and in the winter, a stocking hat I can pull over my eyes.

18

I’ve been taking Tylenol PM to sleep for about 15 years now. Without it, i just don’t get any kind of sleep as my brain will not turn off; this has proven itself on at least two occasions where I thought I did take my pills, and either took regular Tylenol accidentally or just forgot and assumed I took them, only to be awake at 3 in the morning going “Oh fuck”. Never had a negative effect from them, though I use generic and there are probably differences.

I once took them two hours before sleep <which is my normal range> and was awoken after an hour by my sister needing to go to the hospital RIGHT DAMN NOW as her water was breaking early. I was quite functional, though a bit irritated when we got to the hospital and it turned out she was fine, just surprising me with my BROTHER’S wife having her baby.

Anyway, no hangover. And whatever’s in Tylen. PM and it’s generic version is what works for me; there are other on the shelf types with different active ingredients that just don’t work, so…I have stuck with what works. Thank gods it DOES work, otherwise life would be miserable hell. I would highly recommend at least trying them out, a couple different kinds if the first one doesn’t work for you; you never know.

On a sidetrack, my brother’s daughter is literally missing whatever part of the brain makes you fall asleep, and she has somehow managed; she’s well and healthy, about 14 years old now, and one of these days i want to sit down with my brother and talk about all that. It sounds like my absolute worst nightmare, but I haven’t been in the same state for so long that I don’t have the long version of it. Interesting as hell, though.

19

oops

20

I think the insomnia is a dumb word because it’s used as an issue word. Meaning if you have insomnia, then you have a problem. Staying up all night is only a problem if you yourself view it as a problem. If you legitimately have to be up the next day and can’t sleep then of course it truly is a problem. If I were to try and give people a solution, I would tell them to enjoy their day more. Obviously, it gets more personal than that though. First off, you would have to truly believe there is a solution to overcoming insomnia. That may be medication but I believe anyone can overcome it without meds because who wants to rely on meds their whole life? You must quit viewing your being up all night as negative, when you do, it roots into your viewing yourself as negative. That would be the worst thing to happen as it sends you into a unhappy cycle.

Let me try and clear it up…

  1. Believe there is a solution
  2. Create that solution or the less attractive and less successful alternative, let someone else create that solution (example: meds)

BAM! It is a done deal… It sounds simple but that is because that is the only way to deal with it successfully, simply…

There so many more personal opinions I have of the situation but if I were to share them, then it would only add more clutter to your mind as I’m sure you have already read plenty of other opinions of the situation. A lot of times different opinions clash and when you don’t have your own, you get mixed up with others without realizing they are clashed.

Warning: Read my opinion but don’t accept it if you are not sure if I’m right…

If your not sure if you could help yourself in a problem then you automatically go to others. Your thread title is requesting the wrong people if you want to rid insomnia. Because first off, you are calling people or are currently going through the same thing and then second, you ask them how do they deal… Now if you were determined minded on this subject, your title would be similar to “Past insomniacs, how have you dealt” or overcame… That title may even attract people who don’t have or never have had insomnia, just because they see a determined person. And who is a better person to help with insomnia, a person going through it or a person who has never had it. You would think the person who is going through it but, you only want those people because they relate. Relating is another topic I have strong opinions of.

This could go deeper but I am only sharing my opinion, and who knows if my opinion is right. You could accept my opinion for yourself, but then it would be dumb to accept others as well for yourself (clashing).

The only fact I know on this subject is, Insomnia is not algebra… Meaning, there isn’t only one answer. But there is only one answer for each individual person. You can refer to your answer as an opinion towards others to show respect but don’t let that confuse you to believe your answer is only an opinion and that it could be wrong…

It is getting late for me and my self made solution was that I’m not an insomniac, that I’m just up late right now. Also, obviously, there is only one sentence in this thread that wasn’t opinion and that was stated. Also, this applies to more than insomnia. I repeat myself a lot but that is because repetition helps teach. PMs are welcome

I bet you didn’t expect this inside an insomnia thread.