Sleep is a rare commodity. Need insomnia advice.

[jediknightingale]

I miss smashing into a coma the second I get near my pillow. I have had problems sleeping before but now my insomnia is affecting everything else in my life.

I have been eating healthy, drinking no caffeine, and exercising 1-2 hours daily. I work full time and am taking 18 credit hours this semester so I think my insomnia has to do with stress, but I do not know. Like in the past week I have not been able to sleep more than a few hours a night (giving me 18.5 hours of shuteye over a week). I have tried sleepy time tea, turning off the computer for a while before lying down, laying in the dark, hypnosis, sound making machines, meditation, Sarah Mclachlan radio on Pandora...nothing seems to work. When I do sleep I have been clenching my jaw and grinding my teeth so hard that it hurts to open my mouth in the daytime. I feel like I have dreams all night...like my brain refuses to just shut up and rest.

The lack of sleep is really beginning to take its toll. I forget so many things from one minute to the next. I will literally talk to someone on the phone for 15 minutes and within the minute of hanging up I can not say what the conversation was about. Half of the time I feel like my head is an a cloud. I am perpetually running late. I am looking forward to a dentist appointment next week so I can ask for laughing gas. I have been stressing so much about school yet I can not focus enough to write a paragraph, and I have 57 pages due by Sunday night. Everything I have written seems jumbled and incoherent. I tried taking Lunesta and felt drowsy, but still ended up only sleeping 3-4 hours.

Does anyone have any advice/suggestions/home remedies? I am running out of sheeps to count

[Lightstorm]

The only thing that works for me 100% of the time is reading some light fiction books. All page turner stuff, nothing too heavy.

I read until my eyes get droopy and I have to re-read the same page twice, then it's sleep time. I'm normally asleep within minutes, whereas I'd be awake for hours lying in bed otherwise.

Sometimes this means I read for 10mins; other times it means I can finish a whole book, but the end result is that it tends to balance out over the week. One day I sleep less, the next I sleep more, eventually getting into a regular rhythm.

[Timmy M]

not tried these but i've heard they work well:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/features/growyourowndrugs/episode1.shtml (hops pillow for insomnia)

For a pillow about 32 x 23 cm:

4 handfuls dried hops flowers

4 handfuls dried lavender flowers

1. To dry the hops and lavender yourself, tie them in bunches and hang upside down in a well-ventilated space out of direct sunlight for 2 weeks. Alternatively, place in a low oven (about 100C) for 30 minutes or so until dry and crispy. Strip the flowers off the larger or harder stalks.

2. Put equal handfuls of dried hops and lavender flowers into a cotton pillowcase, and seal the end.

USE: Place the pillow under or beside your head to induce sleep.

[JoeBlade]

I can only say: Audiobooks, audiobooks, audiobooks

My wife was an insomniac for years (she came from australia which has very regular daylight hours, to northern europe which splits between 8 and 16 hours of dailight). She had so much trouble that she was up until 4/5 every night before finalyl sleeping from exhaustion. Since we got a subscription to audible I think it is, and have an mp3 player next to the bed, the longest she's been awake is an hour.

It makes all the difference who does the reading though and for me it helps if it's a story I already know, so I don't attentively listen.

we listen to all the books of terry pratchett, as we both enjoy his comedy writing. Nigel Planer and stephen briggs both are good readers.

essentially it's someone reading you a bedtime story, you drift off. ah we also listened to stephen fry reading the harry potter books, that also works well.

anyways it's not for everyone and the first few weeks it kept me awake a bit. (But at least it gives you something to do while you have your eyes closed). These days my wife occasionally falls asleep before I do.

[lwatcher1]

I find that writing in a journal and just doing a brain dump on the more stressful days has been immensely helpful in calming my mind so my body can rest. Couple that with the occasional benadryl to make me sleepy (taken 30-60 minutes prior to bedtime) and I don't even hear the sundry sounds of helicopters passing over my hooch.

[ROOCHOP]

Aside from remedies etc, you need to take back control.

I am not a big sleeper, but I do not let it get to me, just give yourself a time and a before bed routine.

Don't stress if it does not work at first, soon your mind will understand that the routine means bedtime.

Don't concentrate on sleeping or the fact that your not, focus on relaxing and shutting down.

Make sure that you have dealt with your worries before hand and not take them to bed with you.

At the moment it's likely that the fact that you worry about not getting sleep is keeping you from it.

Good luck

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[StrengthIsBeauty]

Have you tried relaxing every muscle from the top of your head down? (Let your body think "puddle")

[AustralMoonBear]

Meditation really helps me, 10-15 minutes of quieting the mind, letting things go etc. and specificaly relaxing each muscle group and I found myself in a good place to sleep. Plus if the sleep didn't come, the meditation itself is restful.

[Hels]

Meditation really helps me, 10-15 minutes of quieting the mind, letting things go etc. and specificaly relaxing each muscle group and I found myself in a good place to sleep. Plus if the sleep didn't come, the meditation itself is restful.

Basically this. My time at school taught me to sleep on command, mostly by telling my brain to shut up and going to my 'nothing box' as the wife calls it. Every man is equipped with one, women have to find theirs

Seriously though, focus on slowing your breathing, relaxing and emptying your mind. Just stop everything.

[AbbyK]

I used to have terrible insomnia and these are the things I do to mitigate it. I cover all of my windows with blackout curtains, push a towel over the gap under the door, cover my alarm clock with a book, basically any possible light source gets covered. About 45 minutes before I want to go to bed I boil some water and make a cup of natural calm. Then I set it by my bed to cool for about fifteen minutes knowing its there. After the 15 minutes I take a 3 mg melatonin and start relaxing with a book playing on my ipod while I drink the tea. As soon as the tea is gone all the lights go off. I am going to start reducing the melatonin to the 1 mg next week as that is when I will run put of the 3 mg. I think the ritual of the tea and book are important and I like that the natural calm relaxes my body while the melatonin kind of quiets my mind. I only do this during the week and make sure I give myself at least 7 hours before I have to wake up when I take the melatonin. I've tried ambien before and while it put me to sleep it made me weird the next day. This feels a bit more natural. I've also started sleeping on a thin feather mattress on the floor which I think helps me wake up better in the morning and helps my back out (I have a very cranky shoulder which likes to pull my back in funny ways).

[theFrog]

I, too, suffer from insomnia and used to be on sleep meds for it. Personally, even though Ambien and Rozerem worked for getting me to sleep, I didn't like how I felt the next morning. So, about 3 months ago, I started a new "sleep routine" to help me fall asleep. So far, it's been working, but it took awhile to get my body used to it.

What I did was this:

In phase 1, i would go to bed about 30 minute earlier than my ideal bedtime (ie, I'd go to bed at 1030 even though I really didn't need to go to bed till 1100). I set my alarm and turned my clock so that I could not see the time. While in bed, I would then read the dictionary or Bible or any other long, wordy, boring book I could find until I had trouble keeping my eyes open. The key is to read every single word and not skip or skim anything.

Once I can't keep my eyes open anymore, I put the book aside, turn off the light, get into a comfortable position and close my eyes. If you're anything like me, the instant the light is out, you feel wide awake again. That brings us to phase 2: unless there is an emergency that requires you to get out of bed, at no point are you allowed to open your eyes until its time to wake up. What I do at this point is relax, slow my breathing and pray for every single person and thing that crosses my mind. Nothing special, just "god bless mom, and dad, and my brother and my dog..." literally whatever pops up. Here's the important part, though: don't ruminate on these thoughts - just a simple acknowledgement that you had the thought, a simple "god bless____" and move on to the next thought.

I realize that not everyone has religious beliefs, but any kind of repetitive, boring thought process will suffice. You can take this time to meditate, send positive energy or mentally chant affirmations to yourself. The specifics don't matter, just the process of occupying your mind with something positive, repetitive and boring is enough to get the stress parts of your mind to shut up and shut down so you can relax and get some sleep.

honestly, if you can last more than 10 minutes of phase 2, you're an insomnia champ. However, if you've spent more than an hour (according to your body clock, because remember - no opening your eyes, and no visible clock even if you cheat and DO open your eyes) and are still as awake as ever, move to phase 3: stop trying to sleep.

That doesn't mean you get to open your eyes. It means you lay there in bed and resign yourself to the fact that you cannot get up or open your eyes until it's time to wake up. If you think you can do it, try to force yourself to stay awake. Whatever happens, you'll either spend all night laying in bed with your eyes closed, or you will bore yourself to sleep.

If you find yourself waking up before your alarm, you have a choice - either physically get out of bed and start your day if you feel you've slept enough, OR re-do phase 2 and bore yourself to sleep again.

As for the grinding teeth... I do that too. The only thing that's worked for me is a bite guard. I got mine made by a dentist - cost about $250 (insurance covered half). There are ones you can buy at Rite Aid or CVS. They're not as strong and sturdy as the one I got from my dentist, but they do work.

Hope you get some sleep soon!

[Guest guest4729]

I don't know much to help with this since I get sleepy really early, but I absolutely agree with theFrog. PLEASE get a bite guard of some sort to help protect your teeth! Grinding your teeth can cause some SERIOUS issues later on in life and is just bad in general. Do something to protect them so you don't do too much permanent damage.

On that note, I wish you luck in your quest to fix your insomnia. Wish I could be of more help.

[LRB]

First, get a bite guard. You don't have to go pay your dentist hundreds of dollars -- one of the ones you get at the local drug store will do. You will sleep better, and you will help to prevent serious tooth/jaw damage.

Second, at what time of day do you work out? Are you fighting the endorphin high when it comes time to go to sleep?

Third, what kind of sunlight exposure do you get during the day? Could you try to get out into bright sunshine first thing in the morning, and again around 3 in the afternoon?

Good luck with this - insomnia sucks.

[jediknightingale]

Thanks for all of the advice! I am going to work my way down the list until I find something. Hypnosis really worked for me before, and I have 5 sessions downloaded but I've memorized every word and find myself saying the script before the hypnotist does.

LRB, I work out from about 4-530/6ish. I actually want to work out from 5-7 but I figure since I am awake I might as well do it. Sunlight is an issue as I work 8-5 in an office with literally zero windows. Hopefully as the weather warms and the days become longer I will extend my time outside.

As for the bite guard, I have an appointment to have one made. I know my grinding has been in issue previously and it gets really bad whenever I am super stressed out. My old doctor said I clench my teeth and grind simultaneously which kills my jaw. It really hurts to chew most days.

But again, thanks for the advice everyone! I've taken so long to get back since I am half asleep all the time. I can barely remember conversations from one minute to the next and my energy for replying online is nearly nonexistent these days! I am looking forward to my sprig break when my brain won't have to work overtime and I am planning on getting back on a normal persons schedule.