Insomnia? ....

[danthegeek]

I counted the amount of hours I have slept in the past week and it came out to only 15 hours in 7 days. I only slept about 3 hours a few of those nights. I dont feel tired and when I go to sleep I just wake-up shortly after. Its been getting worse and i didnt sleep at all last night or the night before. Its like im getting naps lol. Anyone have any advice? I took a sleeping pill and it didnt work. I guess Im just weird.

-dan

[IndyRacer27]

I get like that sometimes. It's usually because I have a lot on my mind (stress from work). Have you talked to a doctor?

[danthegeek]

Not yet. Im going to wait it out a few more days and see what happens. Maybe i just need a vacation. That and my brain needs to slow down so I can think :D.

-dan

[jdbnsn]

I have had marked insomnia for the last week, averaging 2 hrs per day for ~7 days now but mine is almost certainly from stress. Depression is another biggie, given the recent events you may be having an emotionally driven insomnia. Drugs are okay for very short periods of time to get you through a spell, but if it becomes ongoing you should work on behavioral conditioning to help. Some examples are going to bed and getting at the same everyday, don't get out of bed even if you cannot sleep. Don't do anything in the bed but sleep or sex, no TV or reading (and it pains me to say, not even modding). Meditation can help, hot bath about an hour before bed, don't eat for an hour or two before bed, no alcohol, if you smoke then don't smoke for 2 hrs before bed (stimulant). Glass of milk seems to help but I don't know if it's science or wives tale. No TV an hour before bed, try to read instead. For short term relief or while you are building habits to sleep better, OTC drugs that are helpful are Benadryl and unisom (although it gives me vertigo). Rx drug like ambien are stronger, but you need a script. Natural remedies are a bit less effective but have shown promise are melatonin and Valerian root.
If your sleep doesn't improve in a couple of weeks you should see a doc and maybe he/she will consider putting you on a temporary course of antidepressants (some of which like trazadone are very helpful for insomnia). Good luck bud.

Jon

[danthegeek]

Thanks Jon. Ill give it a try and see how it goes. But things should all be down hill from here on, I hope.

thanks
-dan

[b4i7]

lately ive had trouble sleeping as well, some nights i dont even go to bed

to help myself sleep ive been taking benedryl and melatonin and then i start sleeping, and i can get a full night sleep

[Luke122]

I have a solution for insomnia, but the first rule is that I'm not supposed to talk about it. ;)

In truth, I agree that it's probably stress.. plus, the more you worry about sleeping, the more stressed you get. Maybe try some meditation? www.audiodharma.org has some really good guided meditations.. try to get anything by Gil Fronsdale. Super relaxing voice, and he makes things really easy to understand. :)

Aside from that, try not to have anything to eat for at least 3 hrs before sleep, and no caffeine at all for at least 6hrs before bed.

umm.. Maybe get some exercise? Even a walk is a good idea.. a bit of fresh air can help you relax/sleep more easily, just dont exercise right before bed, because then you'll be too wired to sleep, and end up right back where you started.

[Needsleep]

I think, given my username, I have to post in this thread right?

For 14+ years sleep has been a friend and enemy to me.

All the advice given above is worth looking into. I hope that this is a passing bout of disturbed sleep and that you find the trick/combination of tricks that works for you.

It is hard and took me a loooooong time to not worry if I was not getting 'enough' sleep, but now i'm happy when i've gotten a couple hrs nap in and try to look on it in a positive way ("wewt recharged my bateries a lil - better than no sleep eh?") style hehe, getting stressed about getting no sleep is only gonna perpetuate things.

I've always avoided takin pills (for anything), just not brought up a pill popper but I do make sure I only associate my sleeping area with sleep and enjoying my gf's company, makes a big difference. I did however have a longish phase where I had to have noise when I fell asleep, the trick I found there was to listen to something that I could fool my brain into thinking didnt matter if I missed the end. (complete series of Family Guy I had seen so much that my brain didn't mind missing the ends of the episodes but was distracted from over thinking stuff by the show seemed to work for me)

The main point I would like to make to compliment the great advice already dispensed is to let those around you know that you're having trouble. You don't need the added pressure now of trying to conceal your tiredness/strange sleeping habits. As you'll no doubt see from this thread, a lotta people have trouble sleeping at some point, bosses will understand if you explain to them especially if you have scheduled a doctors appointment. Knowing you have the support of people around you is one less weight on your mind - and i'm very much of the opinion that we could all do with less of those eh?

Good luck with getting your sleep, hopefully you'll get to crash out for a good 10 hrs this coming weekend and sleep like you're dead!

anyway that's more than enough blabbering from me :D

[XcOM]

i have suffed what some would call insomnia fo years (Last 12 years) but i saw my doc and he said that as the only way i get a full night sleep is if i take tablets for it, and the fact i show no signs of lack of sleep and my body functions fine then im ok with it.

In short its not the length of sleep you have its the quality of the sleep, my doc said my quality of sleep is of such quality i don't need vast quantities of sleep, i adverage between 3 and 5 hours a night on a good week, some would say im crazy for having such little sleep for the last 12 years but i haven't felt the effects of it yet.

In short, if you feel fine then don't worry, if you do (Now i know this sounds softy girly) but have a relaxing bath and reed a book and try to have a calm stress free evening/day

[xRyokenx]

I used to be much worse where I was living before (abusive hellhole of a home, do the world a favor and don't beat your kids, use some Psychology and don't be lazy ;)) and I've still got a little problem falling asleep, but that's just from getting used to a new job (which is going great by the way), new home, etc.

Daylight-Weirding's-Time isn't helping me either.

[BigJohnson]

I know where all of you are coming from. I have been living on my own for a while but its still stressful. Bills, what you have to do, what you have time to do. What did I forget to do? All of those eat at me while I try to sleep. But I have tried a lot of this stuff and still have a problem. But I have started rationalize with myself. I consider it good sleep if I can get moving and stay moving all day. I consider it bad sleep when I cant get moving in the morning. More recently this is what I have been having, but I have been sick the last week and I went to 2 parties last weekend. So its mostly my fault for only allowing myself a few hours to sleep. But if Im only getting 2 hours i should only lay give myself 2 hours.

As it has been mentioned already that doesnt work. You should lay there all night even if you dont sleep. You will be more rested than if you were to not relax than if you were to relax.

[danthegeek]

Yet another night of very little sleep. I got a little less then an hour. I feel so exhausted but I cant sleep (and that was induced with meds). To late now, time to start the day.

:neutral:
-dan

[BigJohnson]

I think, in another world, you and I are brothers. I also got very little sleep. Although I did not induce meds, but Im exhausted this morning. Im fighting the urge to drink caffeine. I'll just end up crashing this afternoon and be worthless.

[IndyRacer27]

I tossed and turned all night last night also. Might have gotten an hour of sleep. Drank coffee to help keep alert today at work. Now I'm worried I won't sleep again tonight because of the coffee I drank today. Oh well, 1 more shift to go and then I get 24 hours off.

Working shift work really plays havoc with sleep patterns. Switching from sleeping at night to work days and then sleeping all day to work nights messes a lot of people up. Add in a bunch of stress from work, and I sometimes get my days and nights screwed up even on days off, like waking up at 2am wide awake and ready for the day (when I'm on day shift I wake up before 4 am).

[jdbnsn]

Yet another night of very little sleep. I got a little less then an hour. I feel so exhausted but I cant sleep (and that was induced with meds). To late now, time to start the day.

:neutral:
-dan

That sucks Dan, I definitely know the feeling. I would try exactly this, it's my emergency "will sleep or punch the first person I see in the morning" plan;

Take a real hot bath 45 minutes before bed and soak for at least 10-15 minutes. Depending on what you are taking, I guess take as directed (i.e. at bedtime, 30 min before, or whatever). If you have time beforehand, try to download some thunderstorm audio samples and play it softly in the background. Make sure it's pitch black in your room. This is the best mix that works for me, hope it helps a couple of you fellas out.

[b4i7]

aye...nother night of no sleep for me

left home to go visit my mom through easter, left any sleep aids at home figuring the lack of stress would help...guess i was wrong

[a.Bird]

I quit smoking yesterday, had my last cigarette in the evening. I was up all night last night rolling around in my bed, humming random tunes, stretching, reading, etc. The cravings were just terrible. I find it a bit ironic, though, that eventually I'll begin to need less sleep anyways, as my body will retain more energy when it has healed itself more from previous tobacco smoke.

[chaksq]

The worst thing for my sleep pattern was listening to music as I went to sleep. I used to do that for several years during middle school, and maybe even before that. I ended up listening to late night DJs rather than sleeping. It totally screwed up my sleeping and made it difficult for me to fall asleep. After I gave that up it still took me forever to fall asleep.

One thing I found helped me sleep better is kinda simple but made a world of difference. I changed where I slept. Last year for about 2 months I had to sleep on the sofabed in the family room of my house because my former bedroom was torn out to gain access to a new addition that was being put on the house. While the sofabed had a much worse mattress I ended up sleeping better than I had in a long time just because it was different.

My suggestion to those of you having issues getting to sleep is to change up where you sleep. The simplest way is just to rearrange your room and move the bed to some completely different position. You also may consider getting a different bed, doesn't have to be some miracle sleep bed just different maybe change the size or whatever. That can be expensive so a good way to test this is spend a night in a decent hotel (I find hotels geared to business travelers have the best beds), if you sleep better then maybe you should try getting a new bed.

This isn't anything that I've heard or read about I just observed how it has helped me so figured I'd throw it out there. This might be more effective for people who have bad sleeping habits like I used to more so than people with actual disorders. But let me know if it helps anyone.