Insomnia
 

This is crap. It's 4am and I've tried everything: cocoa, watching a film, reading through the 'world music' thread and nothing seems to work. I've been like this for years now and it's a real pain. I usually don't get to sleep until around 6 or 7 in the morning and even then don't get more than about three or four hours actual sleep. It's OK while I'm not working but I start teaching again on Friday and desperately need to regulate my sleep pattern Anyone else suffer from this? Or, better still, anyone who used to suffer from it but found a way of sorting it out - without going on to sleeping tablets or reading Beowolf.

If you really need to get your sleep pattern sorted out, just don't have those few hours in the morning and power through the day, and you may feel a little more tired come the evening. If you suffer from insomnia then I guess you'll end up having the same amounts sleep, just at a more workable time.

I've tried that. Yesterday actually. I didn't go to sleep at all but then caved in at around six in the evening only to wake up with a splitting headache around four hours later. Now I'm completely wide awake - which at least means that it might be an idea to try another marathon session today, maybe trying to stretch it to around midnight.

It is extremely difficult, I tried to a similar thing today, but crashed out between 2.30 and 6.00, which is why I'm still awake now. But it can be done, you just have to have someone on constant standby poking you with a stick or selotape your eyelids to your forhead or something. If you can manage to get through the day without a sleep it's a pretty safe bet you'll sort your sleep patterns out. But thats only sleep patterns, insomnia is a different problem altogether.

To be honest, i thik it's more about sleep patterns than actual insomnia. It's not like I can't sleep, i just can't seem to do it at the right time.

ahem.. I noticed a little something missing

Your problem is work, not sleep.:)

I have the same problem, even if I am dead tired can't go to bed till 3-4 in the morning. So I end up doing my homework, till then.

I have wrestless leg syndrome.. I didn't discover sleep until I was 16 and even then I didn't develop a consistent sleep pattern until last year... my saving grace, the previously mentioned suggestion: it is the only thing that ever made my legs go to sleep so that I could, more so now than ever, as you get older this problem apparently gets worse, my grandmother doesn't sleep at all anymore and it is gotten to be even painful..

it is a bizarre disease to say the least..

Do you normally have this problem during the teaching season? I would think that having to be up for work would force you into a revised sleeping schedule. Sometimes what you do during the day has more effect on your sleeping habits than an intentional sleeping routine does.

i take it youre against seeing a docter and being prescribed something?? i dont blame you if thats the case. sleeping pills seem addictive.

i used to have the same problem, and i took handfuls of benedryl. which wasn't a good idea. but i was young and stupid.

now when i get that problem i work out. drink some 'sleepytime' tea. maybe take a tylenol pm. and avoid caffeine at all costs.

Yeah, don't drink cocoa, it has caffeine in it. Apparently using a computer before going to bed can cause mild insomnia, and watching TV isn't meant to be a good idea. Doing more exercise is meant to help but I would feel like a hypocrite giving that as advice. I've recently found that reciting in my head poetry that I have memorised calms me a bit.

What do you teach? At what level?

Natrasleep seems to help a bit.

eh, cocoa, for sleep! that's like taking speed for relaxation.

you just need to do 2 basic things:
1) exercise first thing in the morning (upon waking). do not exercise (if you do) late in the day.
2) take some sort of sleeping potion in the evening. i take one made with hops, vallerian, chamomille and sckullcap that knocks me the fuck out.

the exercise will tire you out by the day's end and help you cope with stress. if you go for a run or a game of tennis at night, the adrenaline will keep you awake for longer than you need. avoid that.

additionally, make sure your room is plenty dark, and quiet. you might wanna play some ambient music or get a white noise machine if you live in a noisy place. warm/hot showers also help-- save the cold ones for mornings. and avoid caffeine (includes tea) after, say, 3pm?

oh yeah i forgot, one more (important)

3) from the moment you start preparing dinner (what you limeys call "tea"), refuse to discuss or ponder or carry out any work/ work related bullshit. no worries, no headaches, no bills, no problems after a certain hour.

if you wish to avoid a prescription and/or doctor's bill, try practicing better sleep hygiene. clazysimballgui's post lists very good techniques.

google "sleep hygiene" for more.

if nothing works, you may have a circadian rhythm disorder which requires sleep aids to get you back on schedule.


Rx: Sinemet (Carbidopa-Levodopa)

it's what they give to Parkinson's patients but it works for RLS. get yr grandma on it so she can sleep ffs.

i have problems falling asleep too, but not as bad as yours. warm milk appears to help very well, even though i never tried it (never drink milk)

my doctor advised me not to stay tossing and turning in bed because you can't sleep: it's better to get up and do something else (but no pc or tv). you have to learn to associate your bed with sleep and sleep only again.

if this doesn't help at all, you can always mess with your rythm even more, by getting up really early every day (around five in the morning). it will kill you at first, but you might be able to change your sleeping pattern for the good.

another thing is to stop thinking in bed, it helps prety well, as soon as i stop worrying or thinking about stuff i can feel myself doze off. too bad another thought always pops up again.

is this a brand or do you make your own. more info please! Valerian tincture hasn't helped me much.

I recently created an environmental loop on audacity of bird recordings I made, haven't tried it out yet to see if that will relax me. I used to have some 'frequency' tapes my friend Andrew Smith made that were supposed to trigger certain brainwave states, relaxation being one of them.

I should get one of those biofeedback devise that allow you to see your brainwaves on the PC, and then you learn to manipulate them through meditation so you can trigger a relaxed state.

Someday I will live in a real house where I don't have to hear the fridge kick on and off all night nor hear people coing and out of the building all night long and hear the fucking restaurant exhaust motors that shake my building.

Exercise.

Eat right.

Don't spend all day sitting in one spot (i.e. reading SYG).

I wouldn't touch that shit if I was drunk and on acid and if I found out my grandmother was on it I would drive 500 miles to throw that shit in the toilet..

My step-grandmother took that med for parkinsons.. terrible terrible drug. Many of the people I met taking that drug were in bad shape, because of the drug not their disease!

the people I have talked who take it for Wrestless Leg have even worse side-effects... not my cup of tea thank you though..

that shit is deadly to the mind, a good number of the people who take that develop the worst dementia..

It is not a good trade off, I'd take wrestless leg against the side-effects of that particular medication any any any day..

I am very content with my solution, it has worked for nearly a decade and no one could convince me otherwise, they don't live in my legs. I didn't sleep as a child, I didn't sleep until I started to smoke herb before bed, and when I abstain from herb for "recreational" purposes for durations, I maintain daily use for sleep aid.. if !@#$%! can take a blend of hops, vallerian, chamomille and sckullcap, surely, my herbal solution is equally valid.

I do not fuck with dangerous drugs which hurt the body and mind, you all may think that sounds hypocritical, but I assure you there is a world of difference..

I promise you, lack of (good) sleep will cause a greater incidence of dementia than Sinemet.

after 10 years of working in a sleep medicine practice, I can't recall a single person being switched off of it in favor of marijauna (which acts as a stimulant).

ps: the nazi in me wants you to know that there is no "w" in restless. just sayin'.

:p