Insomnia

**Correction** · 2009-07-25 12:39

**Osede** · 2009-07-25 20:36

How about try to do some workout for at least 1-2hrs? During evening time. And it must be at least include some intense running/swimming/cycling.

**Jer** · 2009-07-26 01:16

Hopefully you find something that works for you. I gave up a while ago. I don't use nicotine or caffeine and I run/lift 5 days a week, yet I can never fall asleep or stay asleep. I've tried numerous OTC pills, as well as prescriptions. Some people have luck with Ambien, but I went up to 40mg over the course of a couple nights, upping it every night to see if it worked and it didn't help at all.

When it's not so bad, it's nice having some extra hours to get stuff done. When it's bad, it's really bad lol. There was a 4 month period where I was only sleeping 1-2 hours a night. I kept expecting to see balloon strings coming out of people's heads and little bald men running around with large shears.

**SilverBreeze** · 2009-07-26 11:05

I dealt with insomnia for a while because of some medication I was taking, and at times was only getting little 1-2 hour naps, if even that, before I had to wake up and work for 12 hours, not fun. There's some medications that can help you sleep but a lot of them are habit forming and I wouldn't recommend taking them unless as a last resort really.

A lot of advice people have given here is pretty spot on. If you're like me and work out in the mornings, I wouldn't change that. Trying to work out after work was always a pain for me and I found that it didn't help. Even when I had insomnia I would still wake up in the mornings and go run and come in and shower to wake myself up before work. Do your work day as usual, try and stay away from any caffeine for the most part unless you are one of those people who need coffee to wake up, but after that try and avoid it. People who are walking around drinking coffee at 4-5 o'clock in the afternoon = bad.

Try and eat dinner a couple hours before you go to bed, and set a certain time to go to bed and to wake up. You know your body better than us, so you know how much sleep you need to function. For me I need about 4 hours, but I've known some people who are zombies if they don't get a solid 8.

I know it sounds silly and that it has nothing to do with this, but seriously rub one out before it's time to go to bed. It HELPS. I'm not going to go into all the talk about endorphins and chemical reactions and stuff, but for me and a lot of people I know with insomnia, it helps a lot. You will feel relaxed after, which is what we want. and The easiest way I've found to go to sleep, depending on where you live (if there's a lot of outside noise, like cars and such) is to put on very soft music if so, just barely loud enough to hear. If there's no outside noise, don't bother with it.

Turn the AC down, turn all the lights out, only thing that should be on is the alarm clock and hide it from view if you can cause all it will do is serve to tell you how much you're not sleeping, which is what we want to avoid. Make the room as dark as possible, get into bed and get comfortable and close your eyes and relax. Try not to think about how long you've been laying there, just think about falling asleep. I know it sounds "too easy" to work, but it does.

**ertyu** · 2009-07-26 12:48

I had TERRIBLE insomnia problems pretty much all throughout high school up until about my 2nd year of college (a year ago). I ended up whittling away at my problems.

First, I would take a benadryl about an hour before I wanted to go to sleep, shit knocks you out cold, isn't habit forming, and I would at least get some sleep, it wasn't great sleep, but it was sleep. I would recommend this to anyone at first, because that's what a doctor is going to tell you to do at first (that's what the first 3 I went to told me to do.)

After that, I started trying to pinpoint the problem. I started to work out and that helped, because I could fall asleep, but I would only sleep about 3-4 hours and then be awake and alert and need to take a benadryl to go to sleep again. I started to cut bad foods out of my diet, I wouldn't say I started to eat "healthy" i just stopped putting shit into it. No processed foods, no soda, no large amounts of sugar (make 50 grams of sugar a day your absolute max), and just try to eat "fresh" as much as you can. Shopping at trader joe's is a godsend, you can get good, fresh food (even if its frozen its ok) that has no preservatives, and is relatively healthy for you (great way to lose weight too!). While this solved most (if not all) of my problems, I would still sometimes have problems actually getting comfortable and going to sleep, and the final key which was one of the most important things in my mind, was my mattress. I had a really old mattress that I had been sleeping on for god knows how long, so I made it my goal to get a new one. I bought a tempurpedic celebrity bed and that has been a big help. Any other changes I made were minimal. I live in Arizona, so it's a very dry climate so I started sleeping with a humidifier in my room, got a tower fan so I could be bundled up with covers since my room was kept so cold. Now my life is great. I never noticed how much a good night's sleep really helps just everything around you be wonderful, it really totally turned my life around.

tl;dr

Exercise
Eat better
New mattress

if all else fails, benadryl.

**Nuriko** · 2009-07-26 19:39

I did a sleep study recently to test for sleep apnea since I've been having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep for the entire night. On nights where I haven't had any alcohol, it might take me 1-2 hours to fall asleep then I wake up every hour it seems like. Well, turns out I didn't have apnea but they said me sleep patters are really abnormal. My doctor recently gave me Lorazepam (Lorazepam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). I can't tell for sure if it's helping much yet, but it's supposed to relax you and let you fall asleep/stay asleep better.

**simozene** · 2009-07-26 22:06

All of these ideas are very good and worth giving a shot. One thing that worked for me is self-hypnosis. When you hypnotize yourself you can instantaneously put yourself into an extremely relaxed state and then go to sleep from there.

Google Mark Cunningham 10 to 1 method of self hypnosis. I started with that as it's a very simple induction that can be used very quickly.

Once I started learning more about hypnosis I stumbled upon a torrent for this (NLP - Richard Bandler - Personal enhancement cds). Play one of these tracks beside my bed at night will not only put me into a deep trance and a good-nights sleep, but also have the added bonus of teaching myself new things while I sleep.

Groovebox · 2009-07-26 23:17

Watch some WNBA games.

**Sqwunk** · 2009-07-27 01:15

Spoiler: show

tl;dr
What they said

**Ruiner** · 2009-07-27 02:28

I pretty much have to have something on in the background when I go to sleep. I don't think I've not slept with the TV on or some music going at all save for a few exceptions over the past six or so years. I used to fall asleep watching TV or a DVD, but now I just use my iPod and watch and episode of Family Guy or something, or listen to stand-up. You might want to try it out.

**Dense** · 2009-07-27 04:02

I usually use valerian root tea (smells like ass, but after you are accustomed the the result, you begin to associate the smell with relaxation)...

I also use Lactuca Virosa (wild lettuce) tea for massive relaxation, but that is a bit heavier (depending on how well you make the tea, of course).

**Acturus** · 2009-07-27 06:28

Originally Posted by richardd

thanks you guys!

if you lived in FL, i'd buy you a beer or something (or a blizzard from DQ ,if you dont drink. those things are more addicting than sex)

Woo! I live in Florida. Beer me!

**Blabj** · 2009-07-27 06:38

Chamomile tea with lemon and honey. Sends me to sleep within 5 minutes of drinking a cup. But I think it's like Dense says, I've associated the smell and taste of the tea with feeling tired and falling asleep, so it's probably more psychological than anything.

**Linliel** · 2009-07-27 06:56

Amputation.

- Dr Lin.

**Dense** · 2009-07-28 02:31

Alfred Hitchcock has discovered a miracle cure for insomnia, btw:

YouTube - Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Cure for insomnia

Thread: Insomnia

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