Insomniacs, how do you deal?

[Elysian]

I used to have huge problems with it, linked to anxiety. I would get three or four hours of sleep for weeks, and that would only increase the anxiety, which would make it more difficult to sleep.

I’ll list the things that helped me:

1. Counting down from 500. I’ve never made it to 1.
2. Buying either a loud fan or a loud clock. Seems counterintuitive, but one of my problems was that I would focus too much on my own heartbeat, or small noises in the house, and blocking those out helped tremendously.
3. Don’t lie in on the weekends. Also, do not stay up late deliberately, no matter how great the newest book by your favourite author is…
4. Stick to a schedule. Read on the couch or in a comfy chair for half an hour - 10 to 10:30. Drink a small cup of warm milk - 10:30 to 10:35. Brush your teeth - 10:35 to 10:40. In bed by 10:45. Lights out 10:50. Get out of bed at 7:00 every single morning.

Find out what your problem(s) is exactly. Mine was focusing on a noise, brain not turning off, and not feeling sleepy. The fix was blocking the noise, not giving my brain exciting things to think about directly before bed (reading boring books), and making sure I get up early every day.

You also have to be completely honest with yourself about what is keeping you up. For instance, I was embarrassed to be listening to my heartbeat, because it was an anxiety trigger, and so I didn’t deal with it for the longest time. If your problem is that you sleep too much in the daytime and then aren’t tired at night, recognise and deal with that.

[kiz]

@BrotherCadfael

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.

This :nodding: I’m at the point where I can switch between Benadryl or Tylenol PM and valerian root. I prefer the valerian because it’s not a drug. Some people get awful sleep hangover from it. I never have.

If I didn’t take any of those three, there’s a 98% chance I’d be lying there fully awake. The 2%? I have been able to fall asleep and stay asleep if I’m completely, utterly exhausted. If I’m neither, and if I don’t take something…:eek:

OP, do you do shift work? I’m asking because I did for a very long time, and coupled with my brain chemistry, I honestly believe that is what started me down Insomniac Road.

[Rachellelogram]

Yeah, I grok the insomnia talk. My sleep patterns suck, and like you, I live in my room, so I can’t practice good sleep hygiene. Them’s the breaks.

I have issues with major depression. Not so much anxiety, though, I’ve never had a panic attack. I find that what helps me get to sleep is either the distraction of a TV show or guided audio meditation. Sometimes one works better than the other. Sometimes, I can relax and drift off while listening to calming muscle relaxation audios. Other times, I just lie in bed getting twitchy and hyper and unable to focus on them, so I put on some Futurama episodes instead and fall asleep within the hour. *Other *other times, I resign myself to the fact that I’m simply not going to get to sleep that night at all (thankfully this is quite rare). In which case, I get out of bed and go about my normal stuff (playing WoW usually, or browsing websites). I muddle through the next day at work, crash as soon as I get home around 6, then wake up around 3am feeling much better.

What also helps me is making sure no clocks are visible–knowing what time it is just makes me :mad:grumpy:mad: that I’m not asleep yet. Knowing whether I got 4 or 7 hours of sleep in the morning doesn’t make me any happier, more awake, or less awake. Stop tracking the number of hours you get, because IME, the more you track the less you’ll get.
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The one thing I have found that does not–cannot–help me sleep, is dark and silence. I am not generally afraid of the dark, but I find it intolerably boring and impossible to sleep without aural distraction. I am completely unable to fall asleep in the dark and quiet unless I am totally exhausted, which I found out when the power was out for 3 days a couple weeks ago (so I might get to sleep sometime around 4am, if I’m lucky, when I have to get up around 7).

I’ve only ever tried small doses of Nyquil and otc sleep aids a few times. I didn’t feel they helped me very much. I’d like to look into melatonin, and if that doesn’t help, I’m hoping to go to whatever doctor I can find to prescribe me something. (I don’t have a family doctor, I move around too much)
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TL;DR version of my own sleep issues:

[spoiler]I have a lot of problems with sleep paralysis and bad dreams. Along with the inability to move, I also get VERY unpleasant phantom sensations that someone is actually on top of my body–it feels 100% fucking real. :eek: I also experience events where I think I wake up, but I don’t–over and fucking over again. These “fake-ups” (instead of wake-ups, aren’t I clever?) are *unbelievably *disorienting, and some weeks happen on a multi-nightly basis. If the lights from my monitor weren’t on at night, I would have that much more trouble discerning whether I’ve actually reached reality yet.

I have a whole subset of nightmares that I refer to as “party dreams” that seem exceptionally lifelike and personal, and thereby more terrible. I go into the place (a house or dorm usually) and it’s always populated with large numbers of people from my past (old friends from high school or college, old ex-bfs, often people I haven’t thought about for, literally, years). Crazy stuff will be happening all around me, usually involving people getting drunk or stoned off their asses. I’ll join in and be the life of the party, having a good time. I’ll pass in and out of consciousness at said party, while stuff keeps happening that feels like a memory (but once I wake up I realize that’s totally crazy, I never did stuff that insanely irresponsible in high school or college–but dreams feel real while you’re in 'em). Usually I’ll end up getting taken advantage of (sexually) in the dream, and while struggling to get away (and wake up) is when most of my sleep paralysis episodes occur.

Occasionally I will have less unpleasant (but still highly-sexually charged) dreams that end with fake-ups (usually just before I uh, get off). Those still suck because of the ensuing disorientation and trouble getting back to sleep, but at least they aren’t nightmares.[/spoiler]

I think I would rather have straight insomnia and anxiety attacks than sleep paralysis and fake-ups multiple times per night. But as I’ve never had an anxiety attack, I guess it could just be a grass-is-greener thing.

[Miss_Gnomer]

My answer is simple: drugs

Find which ones work for you, which ones don’t … and take them. Ignore the social crap that you shouldn’t need them or be on them … if you had a major wound no one would begrudge you painkillers!! I’ve taken some that knock me out for over 24 hours - obviously not good ones for me; the ones I use nightly (yes, nightly … and will continue to do so no matter how many young doctors keep talking to me about stopping them) make me sleep for about 4 hours … so it doesn’t guarantee a full nights sleep but at least I get something to stop the rest of my system breaking down.

I think I can be classified has being “sleep phobic” … I hate it! I do anything to avoid having to go to sleep (I currently should be in bed, but I’m procrastinating) … when I do go to bed, trying to get to sleep is like a battle.

Gotta love being trapped in a cycle … the worse I feel, the less I sleep, the less I sleep, the worse I feel.

[Nava]

My mother’s ailments are more in the physical side (she’s also known to have a sleepless night or two due to anxiety/anger over Grandma), but she found out a long time ago that once she starts tossing and turning it’s better to get up than to stay in bed. She’ll switch the telly on, read a book, do some knitting - then eventually get groggy and either move to the bed or fall asleep in her big fat armchair. She takes so many pills already that the last thing she needs is to add another one, plus she’s got a (finally admitted recently, she used to deny it) history of addiction to mis-prescribed pills.