Recently I’ve been having a lot more trouble getting to sleep. I’ll be devastatingly tired, but as soon as my head touches the pillow the thoughts start racing and I get antsy. What do y’all do when your country seems to have placed a travel advisory on the Land of Nod? Preferably ideas that can be put into action once you’re actually in bed, but any will do.
I usually read until I fall asleep. Not great for my glasses, but when my mind is racing and I can’t relax, getting lost in a good book is the only way to break the loop and stop thinking.
The other thing I do, which won’t work for everyone, is I have my last meal of the day right at bedtime. Since I’ve had gastric bypass surgery, eating makes me very, very groggy…I usually fall asleep right after eating lunch, and my coworkers know to come wake me up if I forget to set the alarm on my phone. So by eating in bed, I am right there ready when the urge to sleep becomes overwhelming.
Sigh Getting to sleep has been my lifelong problem. I’ve more or less conquered it, but I’m not sure what worked. Here’s a list of things to try, in order of ease of implementation:
An herbal supplement, such as valerian root, or other sleep aid might be helpful for a few days. Sometimes it just takes something to knock you out, break the spell, and get you back on track.
Read in bed, as kittenblue suggested. But not something so engaging that will keep you up all night reading.
Diversion. Allow yourself to think about things, but only good, menial things. In my case, I’ve often thought about something like how many reps of bicep curls I’m going to do in my next workout. Visualizing this.
Counting. Not sheep, really, just counting. Sometimes I will add a visual element if I feel especially distracted…like the numbers coming at me in 3-D with different colors and fonts.
Watch your caffeine intake. Sometimes this works for me, and sometimes I feel like I can drink coffee all day and not have it keep me up…go figure.
Take some time at the end of the day to organize your thoughts and prepare for the next day. Write stuff down so you can let it go, mentally. If your mind is racing about personal stuff, you may have to do some exploring of something that might be bothering you. Better to do it in the light of day and maybe even discuss it with someone.
Not working right up until bedtime. Giving myself some time to calm down and think about other things. Reading calming material.
Small state of sleep deprivation. I think this works especially well. Get up at the same time every morning. I know this is hard, and I can’t say that I do this very well. Sometimes, your body refuses to obey your mind. But when I do it, I am ready to hit the sack at night.
When I was renovating my house, I was exhausted and fell asleep like a light switching off. I guess this would mean that physical activity and physical exhaustion will make you not care about sleeping. Okay, I know you said you feel exhausted, but are you doing physical work? Because I find that mental labor exhausts me, and I also feel physically exhausted, but if I’m not working physically, it makes no difference in my sleep. And if I’ve been programming or something, the brain doesn’t know how to stop.
There’s probably more and I’ll let you know if I think of anything. I would suggest trying the simple, easily implementable strategies first, then if they don’t work, go for something more difficult.
This is something I read about 30 years ago in Ann Landers’ column, and it seems to have worked every time. When you are relaxed in bed, unclench your teeth, and don’t suck on your tongue so that it’s tight against the roof of your mouth. Let your tongue and jaw muscles relax. It doesn’t sound like much. But if I’ve been trying and failing to go to sleep, I remember about my mouth, and usually I have one or both things going on. After I stop, it’s not long before I’m asleep.
I can’t help you with the anxiety part that keeps you awake, but the relaxation technique works.
I took Ambien for a while and it made me think really, really weird thoughts. This led to dreaming pretty quickly.
I don’t take it anymore, but when I find my mind racing I think of the strangest, most benign things. Like pandas playing golf on the moon or something. Strange, but it often works for me.
I always find that it’s best to spend the last hour of the day not working or worrying. For example, regardless of what is scheduled for tomorrow, if it’s not done an hour before I plan to go to bed, it’s not going to be done. I spend the last hour of my day just doing things I find relaxing: maybe TV, maybe a book, maybe a crossword puzzle. Nothing that is going to require a lot of thought, but something that will require some unimportant thought (“I wonder how Character X is going to resolve this problem,” or "Five letter word for ‘1970s Dodge’). These will be there tomorrow; they are unimportant now.
One thing I do if I simply cannot sleep is to get up and do something for a while. Again, this would be nothing important; and would likely be watching TV or reading or doing a puzzle, but not in bed–fifteen or thirty minutes, then back to bed, and I’ve forgotten what was bothering me and so, can sleep.
I had a few nights lately where I was tossing and turning due to anxiety and stress. I found that Unisom sleep gel capsules were enough to help me relax and nod off.
Good luck finding a solution that works for you.
This is what I do. I count backwards from 40 with the visualizations as well. The best way I can describe it is to think of the counting sequences from Sesame Street. I make sure I do this nice and slowly and I’m almost always out by the time I get to twenty.
I find this helpful too. Just don’t try too hard to keep accurate count. I usually lose count and start over many times.
Also, turning down the lights in the evening seems to help. Starting several hours before bed time, use the bare minimal amount of light.
I often have problems getting to sleep. If I’m not asleep, or at least beginning to feel as if sleep will come soon, within about 20-30 minutes of turning off the light, I get up and go do something such as read. Lying in bed tossing and turning just seems to make it worse.
I’m another one who does the counting, only I count backwards from 100. I usually imagine myself walking down a flight of stairs and counting each step.
(I did share this with a friend once who said “You mean like stairs leading down to a creepy dungeon? Doesn’t that freak you out?” :smack: “Errrr, no, I always imagined those quaint steps they have in formal gardens going down to a terrace or something. Thanks for the creepy dungeon image, though.”)
The trick is that if I find myself thinking of any of the stressful things that are sometimes racing around my brain, I have to start over again at 100. So if I’m thinking 88 … 87 … 86 … omigod, what am I going to do about that awful situation at work? And that wedding is this weekend and I still haven’t found a gift … I’m back to 100.
I don’t think I’ve ever gotten down to zero before falling asleep. I started this when I was going through a very stressful time, and I did have start counting over A LOT at first. Now it seems like I’ve managed to condition my brain that counting backwards = sleepy time.
I have been an isomniac for just about all of my life. I finally caved in and got one of these: Sunrise Alarm Clock.
It has a neato little function-- you can set it to slowly dim as you go to sleep. I set it for an hour’s worth of dimming, then start reading in bed. By the time the light is too dim to read by I’m asleep. It works really well, and the wake up function is equally efficient.
Problem is, now, I fall asleep with my book on my belly each night, and my girlfriend ends up taking off my glasses, putting away my book, all that-- and sometimes inadvertently wakes me up in the process…
From a text book that I have with a section on fatigue and sleeping (mostly already covered in the above posts):
- Avoid caffeine near bedtime
- Avoid napping during the day
- Ensure your bedroom is cool and quiet
- Plan about an hour of quiet time free from exercise and emotional stress before going to bed
- Have a drink of warm milk (if you like milk, if you dont, then forget that one)
- Take a book for light reading
- Consciously relax your muscles when you are in bed
- If you don’t sleep within 30mins, get up, do something, then try again.
And from me, from personal experience, if you have thoughts racing around demanding attention, try doing something to either action those thoughts or write them down. So if I was having problems at work or something, I might write a letter to the boss about it (not necessarily with the intention of giving it to him, just to get the thoughts down on paper.)
Lastly, alcohol, while sometimes making it easy for you to get to sleep, can result in poor quality sleep and should be avoided.
Post post:
If you have trouble sleeping even when you are tired and the conditions are good (as per my first post), it may be an indicator of chronic fatigue or stress and it may be worth taking a look at your lifestyle in general.
There’s a lot of great advice in here.
My personal experiences to falling asleep are:
- exercise
- I listen to this great movie, Before Sunset, (audio only)
- soft teas
- love
:o
I always have trouble getting to sleep.
A few things I’ve found that work are:
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Sleeping in different places. It’s always easier for me to sleep in a strange place than in my own bed, for some reason. If I switch it up and sleep on the floor one night or on the couch, I’m a lot more likely to get to sleep. I can almost always sleep if I’m at someone else’s house or on a trip or something.
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sometimes, I get one of my favorite movies and set the DVD to play it in a foreign language. It has to be a movie I know by heart so that I’m never really tempted to stay up watching it, but one I love so that I’m not bored with it. I play it in a different language becuase once I start drifting off, the speech lulls me to sleep without giving me weird dreams or anything. It also helps to choose a movie that doesn’t have annoying menu music so it doesn’t wake you when it’s over.
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Listen to soothing music. I used to try the movie thing with Whale Rider, but always ended up just watching the whole movie. After it was over, though, I’d play the whale music on the DVD and it almost always put me to sleep.
At least 3 hours before bedtime will help alot.
Oh, that reminds me that when I was single, if I absolutely could not fall asleep, I would sleep with my head at the foot end of the bed, and it worked like a charm. I always had the impression that if I abused it, it wouldn’t work any more so I only did this when the (lack of) sleep situation was really dire.
Skip the movie, listen to the whale noise.
3 hours? :dubious:
Huh, so I’m not the only one who does this. That’s comforting, I think. It’s like my brain thinks “Ooh, weird dream-logicky images. I can do that!”
And just because nobody’s said it yet: Sex. 