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Has anyone on here managed to beat their insomnia? I’m fed up with it controlling too many aspects of everyday life. How do insomniacs on here cope or deal with theirs? Do you have any do’s or dont’s Which you think make a difference?
Maybe we can put our sleepy bed-heads together and find a solution.
zzzzzzz
Yeah.
No sugar, phone several feet away, no booze.
Early bed to early to rise.
Worked for me.
I did a course with CBT. 6weeks, 2hrs a week, and it did cure it for a while but then I got back into old ways...
They mainly say restrict bed time to 6hrs, same time every day, and if you dont sleep in 20 minutes, go downstairs until you feel sleepy again.. then once you get QUALITY sleep (in the 6 hours), you can gradually increase the sleep time until the quality drops off again
It was a killer trying to do it, but it worked.
Just moved house and gone from 3hrs sleep to 6 overnight. Different things work for different people, but I find GABA relaxes me, and then I dont care if I dont sleep.
When I get it bad, the only thing that works for me is an iPod of ambient music (Spotify also have a decent selection) - on really quiet, headphones in and it gets me through the night.
I have disturbed sleep, regularly drop off at 10pm then awake at 4 or 5.. sounds ideal right? Well the only thing is it’s seasonal for me.. now we’re in BST I sleep a lot better, when in GMT I wake regularly..
Think of the bright side. Only 15 more sleeps to Christmas.
I got to sleep listening to a podcast of some sort, otherwise my mind is too busy. Works a treat for me and I often only listen to the first 20 seconds!
I started listening to R3. If you dont sleep at least its entertaining although you have R4X now much better.
Try reading Proust À la recherche du temps perdu in what ever language you like.
Zen breathing is good.
Just lie there and start counting your breathes. I almost made it to ten once.
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"They mainly say restrict bed time to 6hrs, same time every day, and if you dont sleep in 20 minutes, go downstairs until you feel sleepy again."
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Yeah, I heard that one. For me it just means "get up after 20 minutes, all night"
I was prescribed bio-melatonin, and it seems to work. Not perfectly- it's not a knock-out pill, just basically a body clock hack- but it's helped.
Get you partner to stroke you to sleep, like you are a cat!
Ride 500 km/week.
I'm binary, asleep/awake. Physical tiredness helps sleep. Having a lighthouse Swan teasmade next to the bed probably does not help.
In serious mode, limit caffeine (hangs around for a few hours), screens and light for at least an hour before bedtime.
I listen to LBC radio on a little flat speaker under my pillow. In the evenng Ian Collins is on after 10pm but I find his program too heavy for going to sleep on so I listen to Steve Allen from the 4am slot or nick abbot who does the night show fri and saturday. Get the LBC app on your phone and a pillow speaker from ebay/amazon.
My wife listens to audio books, The discworld novels are a favourite.
As others have said above, listening to something helps me - although it has to be spoken word for me. Any kind of music is no good at all - it needs to be words that my brain can follow and focus on. I think it's something about distracting it from all the other things that are keeping it awake! The BBC Radio app is great for finding podcasts to listen to - the World Service and Radio 4 between them keep me supplied with plenty of stuff and you can follow things or save them for later so in the middle of the night you can quickly get to something and don't spend a lot of time staring at a screen and waking up even more. I find if it's something I'm interested in I'm usually asleep within a few minutes, and if I am still awake I don't really mind since I'm listening to something interesting. Whereas the radio risks being not interesting, too anger inducing, or having music - which then wake me up even more. I just have one headphone in on ear and have it on really quiet, so I have to lie still to be able to hear it. For nights when that just doesn't work at all, I have a kindle paperwhite with backlit screen so I can read without waking up my husband, but generally I've reached a point where just putting the earphone in seems to put me into sleep mode.
Get it bad when I stay in hotels for work....like I have now. Get home and back to 8+ again.
I find this stuff helps, (natural non-prescription) Melatonin. I work shifts and 1 or 2 really helps with no added nasty side effects
March saw the one year anniversary of my last night of good sleep of eight hours!
The only consistently effective solution I've found is being stoned, however it's a different quality of sleep and not as good as a sober night. Nytol and antihistamines do work sometimes, but I always feel crap the next day and not much better than if I'd had a bad night of 4 hours sleep.
I would recommend Eckhart Tolle's audiobook stuff, he has one on spotify which covers methods of emptying your mind of thoughts at night to sleep. It definitely works, but I suddenly realise I'm falling asleep and jump myself awake.
I'm "lucky" to have a low paid zero responsibility job at the moment where I can rock up at 11am after 3 hours sleep and get through a day. That's going to have to change at some point though. I'm dreading the long term effects such as alzheimers.
Look on the bright side. Only 20 sleeps until Christmas.
There are some herbal remedies that help you relax and keep a book by your bed to read. That should stop the thoughts whirring round and waking you up more.
I find it difficult to go to sleep. Once I do, I only sleep for a short while, 2 or 3 hours, and then wake up. Once awakened my brain thinks it’s time to get up. To try and get back to sleep is a long process. I will try most of the suggestions mentioned, especially podcasts. The idea of getting up after 20 minutes is frightening though. Each time I would get up would be a constant rather irritating reminder that I am failing to sleep. I have been looking into melatonin but worry i could become dependant on it for sleep. Has anyone else here tried it?
Anyway, time to get back to staring at the ceiling.
Don't have proper insomnia but do struggle with waking in the night feeling wired and thinking about work a lot. Podcasts help massively. As do writing detailed to-do lists every weke and keeping them up to date so I'm not waking thinking 'I need to rmember to do ..."
The idea of getting up after 20 minutes is frightening though. Each time I would get up would be a constant rather irritating reminder that I am failing to sleep.
It's not though.
Bed is only for two things. The other one is sleeping. You need to train your body to understand this.
If you spend time in bed reading, watching TV, eating biscuits, browsing the internet or lying awake, watching the clock, stressing about how much sleep you aren't getting then this breaks that psychological connection.
If you can't sleep, get up. Go downstairs and read a book or do the ironing or something. Don't go back to bed until you feel tired and sleepy. If you can't get to sleep, get up again. Rinse and repeat.
Never try and sleep in a chair or on the couch. If you're tired, go to bed. Bed = sleep and sleep = bed
It might take a few weeks but , eventually you'll remake that connection and as soon as you get into bed, you'll go to sleep.
I was an insomniac for most of my twenties until someone explained this to me. Now, I fall asleep within minutes of getting into bed and sleep the sleep of the righteous.