Sanibelman, Mangeorge – you are probably on the wrong planet. I, too. We need a planet with a longer day. I think a 30 hour day might be about right: stay up 20 hours; sleep 10.
It’s my hope that when there are orbiting space habitats to which one can immigrate, they will offer a range of choices as to length of day.
Go to a sleep disorder clinic, and see an actual, accredited doctor about this.
Most of those “herbal remedies” are so much snake oil, and some of them have harmful ingredients (remember, none of them are regulated, so you have no idea what’s actually in them!).
You’re unlucky enough to have an inconvenient sleep cycle; maybe when you graduate, you can become a highly paid night-shift worker!
Two words of advice:
See a doctor- I was dozing off at all sorts of weird times of the day…having trouble sleeping and waking up really tired. Turned out I was never hitting “REM” sleep, so it was like being up all the time. I take medication now and I sleep great.
Get a night job. I did it for two years. LOVED IT! The pay is great, your boss is never there, and other 3rd shifters are more fun. Plus, when the first shift rolls in all bleary eyed, you get to go home and snooze during the day, which may be your natural cycle…
An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; A pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.
There was a recent study talked about on www.bbc.co.uk
It suggests that wearing warmsocks and gloves will increase the rate at which you fall asleep because Melatonin will be able to get about the body easier because of the dialation of the blood vessels in your extremeties and that poor blood ciculation can cause you to not be able to sleep.
-Damien
If you’re drinking anything with caffeine in it, give it up. You wouldn’t think one lousy can of Dew could screw you up that badly, but some people such as myself don’t tolerate caffeine very well. No matter how exhausted I am, if I’ve drinking any pop with caffeine, I always get that “DOIIING! WIDE AWAKE NOW!” at 9:00 pm.
Also bear in mind that it’s tempting to stay up late weekends when you can sleep in the morning. But then Monday rolls around and it’s “Dawn of the Dead” time. It’s very hard to adjust your sleep cycle backwards. I know it sucks to have to go to sleep at 8:00 pm on a Saturday night and get up at 5:00 am Sunday morning. But you’ll be in much better shape Monday if you do.
My favorite ploy for nights when I can’t sleep is to cast movies that someone will make from my favorite books. Somehow trying to think of the perfect actor sends me off, probably by keeping my mind off the fact that I am not sleeping… I’ve never finished a cast yet! I can do the same book over and over, because I usually don’t recall who I chose in the AM.
The reason gentlemen prefer blondes is that there are not enough redheads to go around.
Or you could try playing the Alphabetical Drug Game:
“I went to a party and took some acid.”
“I went to a party and took some acid and barbiturates.”
“I went to a party and took some acid, barbiturates, and cough syrup.”
Etc., etc.
I don’t know WHY this works, but I’m always asleep before I reach the letter J.
Before anyone else beats me to this:
SanibelMan, if all else fails, you can try reading my long-winded post in the “What to do with $12,000” thread. 
Look, I used to havr the same problem. Then I added a 20-minute-a-day exercise routine to my life. IT HELPS! A sedentary lifestyle can wreck your chances of a good night’s sleep. But a brisk 20-min. walk does wonders for me!
Give it a try.
What the hell, it can’t hurt you & it’s free!
Sanibel - you,like most teens, probably have an internal clock that is programmed for a 26-30 hour day. Your body is probably NOT tired at 10 PM, and it sure isn’t ready to get up at 6, when you only got to sleep at 1 or 2. As people get older, their internal clocks change, so that the intrisic cycle is about 20-22 hours, which is why grandparents fall asleep at 8, and wake up at 5 and oh so cheerfullly tell you about the wonderful sunrise you missed…
Many of the above suggestions were very good ones - keeping to the same schedule as much as possible is the best way to train your wake-up hormones to peak just as you should be waking. But it’s darned hard to stick too! Good luck!
Sue from El Paso
members.aol.com/majormd/index.html
I’ve never been able to get to sleep before midnight, and it’s gotten no easier as I’ve gotten older. I seem to need less sleep than I did as a teenager, though. Still badly need a nap around 2pm, but I’m always wide awake in the evening until 12 no matter how little sleep I got the night before. I exercise plenty, and it makes no difference. I’ve tried lots of tricks, but nothing works… it’s just my internal clock. I still think it’s sadistic to make teenagers get to school so early in the morning.
I forgot to say why masterbation works…
After you masterbate, your pituitary gland releases melatonin, which in turn, makes you sleepy, and then you sleep.
Another thing that works for me is to drink a lot a water (around 5 cups). The water will get you drowsy as well, and in turn, helps you sleep.
Give us an update on how you’re doing, okay?
My 2 cents:
Avoid much carbos at dinner.
Take a walk afterwards.
A strong cup of Chamomile and Pau d’arco tea, with milk, before bed. (Maybe with Baileys.
Read book. Draw mind away from outside. No TV.
If you’re going to espouse jerking off, at least spell it correctly.
It’s masturbate, dammit.
I strongly suggest you do not try antihistamines if you have any addictive tendancies or if insomnia is a chronic problem.
The OTC (over the counter) sleeping pills I had such a problem with were antihistamines. I found out it’s easy to get hooked on the “drunk” feeling. It hits fast and hard (20 minutes after you take them you are snoockered) but they take longer and longer to put you under the more you take them. Your body will develop a resistance to the sleep, so you just stay in the quasi-drunk state. Eventually, if you keep taking them you won’t even get that drunk feeling anymore.
possibly the world’s only naive cynic
Dawnbird, you’re right, and I haven’t tried antihistamines to get to sleep. I have taken Benadryl before, for allergies, and it leaves me feeling like jello for days. No good for school.
Nickrz, you’re right too, but it’s damnit, not dammit, damnit!
I’m afraid that I can’t take night school - I’m not in college, I’m in high school. I’m a sophomore in high school. I’ve tried Valerian Root, but it tasted awful, and I have little willpower. As I said earlier, the melatonin doesn’t help me. But the milk and cookies did, a little bit - I was asleep by midnight and was refreshed in the morning, on a Friday, so that’s a good sign. But I got 12 hours of sleep last night, so I’ll resume testing on Tuesday. I’ll let you know how I’m doing before then. I’m going to a hypnotist at the Playhouse now; maybe that’ll help.
SanibelMan
Yes, I seem to be having trouble controlling THE VOLUME OF MY VOICE!
–Austin Powers
Let me take a moment to correct some people:
Stop telling him to eat/drink right before bed time! It may not happen right now, but eventually it will lead to reflux. It is just a bad idea. So stop it.
For those of you telling him to go see a sleep specialist – you’re jumping the gun. It has not been established that this is a chronic disorder that can’t be remedied through simple behavior modification. If the suggestions he is receiving here don’t work, then he should see a specialist.
Antihistimines and other drugs: Antihistimines are not generally known to be physically addictive. They do not create a groggy effect for more than four to eight hours (unless you take large doses or time-released doses). The liver has a habit of disposing of foreign chemicals from the body in a somewhat timely manner. If you felt groggy a few days after an antihistimine, blame your poor sleeping habits, not the drug.
You should not be seeking a chemical solution to sleep problems until you’ve exhausted behavior modification. And when you do use a drug for sleeping – it should only be a short term help. If it doesn’t help in the short term, see a sleep specialist. Herbal remedies are based on anecdotal evidence and they may or may not have any real effect.
Peace.
I’ve had problems all my life too. Here’s what I’ve picked up:
Antihistamines & alcohol make you sleep too deeply, skipping the all-important REM stage for stage 4 sleep. You’ll get into a viscious cycle where you take a pill to get to sleep, then need one the next night, because you really didn’t get sleep the previous night. If you absolutely must take sleeping pills, take them 4 hours before bedtime. (I only take them if I’ve had several days of insomnia already) Most of the medicine will be gone, but you’ll be really sleepy by then.
Don’t try to get to sleep for more that 15 or 30 minutes. After that time, you need to get up and do something. This needs to be something you don’t like to do - cleaning, homework, etc. Before you go to bed, tell yourself exactly what you will have to do if you don’t get to sleep, and do that if you do get up.
Sleep occurs in cycles of 3-5 hours, usually 4 hours. If you are woken up in the middle of a cycle, you’ll be sleepier. If I wake up less than an hour before my alarm going off, I will get up & start the day. If I wake up and I’m really wide awake, I’ll do this even if it’s two hours early.
I’m gonna say that i have to agree with the exercise approach. I used to have the very same problem before i got into high school. As soon as i hit my freshman year, i started playing football and being active. All of a sudden, i never had a problem getting to sleep again. I occasionally do now, but only when I haven’t exercised. Keep an active lifestyle, not only willl it help you to sleep but has innumerable other beneficial aspects to it.
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.
The sleep - exercise cycle is interdependent. You’re not going to sleep well (deeply and regularly) if you do not exercise. Your exercise and/or athletic performance will suffer if you don’t sleep well. Sleep is very important for the recovery and rebuilding of muscle tissue.
Peace.