sleeping, and trying to get to sleep help?

[Will]

Errr, well I seem to have been getting more and more nocturnal over about 5 years, guess I shall be up for 3 more hours tonight, and getting rather annoyed at this point, as I am too shattered to do school work, but to awake to sleep...
Doctor won't give me sleeping pills, and the herbal stuff doesn't work...

so, my point is: any advice on making me sleep?

long midnight walks don't tire me out, or exercise in any way
guitar seems neutral, and merely passes time
and I never want to see a sheep again, so no counting sheep

getting rather critical as I am nearing January exams, and a helluva lot of History essays too :( (that were due in last week)

please help!

[shaman]

hmmm...sounds like stress, no doubt-if it IS causing problems, I would suggest a little hypnosis-yep....after I had a back surgery yrs ago,same thing happened-a self hyp tape really did help me...but you must believe in it to work..
another suggestion:go have your blood pressure measured
high bp can be causing that as well(take it from me..I have heart disease...when I figured it out and starteed taking meds, sleep improved...) *** remember, you can be young and have heart problems..so many times, it is in the family..heredity...
OR...drink until you pass out-my favorite remedy!

[38thBeatle]

I would say a good relaxation cd. I can't bear the new age music type but there are one or two hypnosis cds about that  think are pretty good. You don't have to believe in it-just let go of the day.Glenn Harrold is supposedly good-according to my missus who knows about such things.

[WezV]

diet can help as well.  not eating or drinking anything too stimulating after a certain time.  

high protein at supper, lots of beans, pulses and leafy green veg .... as well as foods like lettuce and bananas

camomile tea instead of caffine drinks

handfull of nuts of some fruit just before bed

supplements like 5-HTP or  magnesium



all these things either increase serotonin (calmes you down), help to sedate the nervous system or just reduce stimulants in the body

[kevin]

I actually have a similar problem. I'll find that sometimes it's late, but I just can't bring myself to go to sleep, and when I finally do I might lay around in bed for a good hour before I actually fall asleep. In a month, when I go back to classes, I'm going to have to wake up at 6:00 AM, so hopefully I adjust my schedule by then. I'm thinking that if I force myself to wake up earlier I'll end up going to sleep earlier and I'll eventually get adjusted to going to sleep earlier.

[Kilby]

Could be a bit of stress causing it, though you may not be recognising it as stress

I'd definately go with Wes and his suggestion of camomile tea if you are a coffee or tea drinker try swapping to herbal teas particularly in the evening as it can take a while for the effect of caffine to go away

I also found that reading anything that stimulates the imagination before trying to sleep messed up my sleeping, so perhaps choosing something that is pure entertainment instead, as that helps to put your mind in neutral.

If you have a digital try BBC Radio 7, as they run old radio serials and comedy shows, which can be pretty relaxing (for some people)

[Fourth Feline]

I can echo the suspicion that it is stress related. I even wonder if you have a touch of stress or seasonaly triggered depression. A few people I know did not reclaim a 'normal ' sleep pattern till an underlying stress related depression had been treated by a short course of Anti-depressant medication. One of the deceptive things about depression, is that you may not feel depressed - but you eat junk late at night and fail to sleep e.t.c. (When under stress or depressed the hypothalmus tends to give out the wrong signals regarding sleep and eating patterns).

If this is more innocent than that, then I can also confirm that an insomniac mate of mine goes to bed straight after work at about 6-7pm, then gets up after his wife falls asleep about 10-11pm to listen to radio 7 from the comfort of his sette whilst his wife sleeps undisturbed upstairs. I have found that these things can be an indicator that we need to look at some other, more subtle aspect of our lives for an answer.

You mentioned that the guitar playing was "neutral" just now ? - what are your eating patterns/choices/attitudes just now ? Look at the bigger picture, the insomnia may just be the tip of a temporary iceberg which is trying to draw your attention. Perhaps discuss this matter with a more enlightened G.P.  ?

All the very best with it Will.

Regards,

F.F.

[Muso]

Diet is massively important, don't eat any cr@p and cook everything from raw ingredients. Also exercise early evening say 4-6pm and do a hard workout which should fatigue you like swimming or weights at the gym. Your doing long midnight walks is a bad idea, exercise will stimulate you and make it impossible to sleep until a long time after the effects have worn off.

If you can afford it get some Valerian, Ive heard lots of good things about this stuff and you should be able to buy it from Holland and Barrett. Like all pills even herbal ones you shouldn't use them forever, just try it out see if it works etc.

Also try http://www.healthboards.com/ for more information they have a pretty good community there who has tested pretty much everything.

Finally try to go to bed at a regular time each evening, ideally you wanna be awake 16 hours a day and sleep 8.

In my experience exercise is the key, if youre physically tired you will sleep!

[_tom_]

I was like this about a month or two back but I've managed to even it back out now. What I did was just force myself to get up early, even after not having much sleep, which then I guess made me feel tired earlier in the night than before, and it seems to have worked for the time being.

Oh, and getting drunk always makes you sleepy :P

[Henk]

Work hard or go to a gym, get tired, sleep like a baby.......

[Will]

Thanks for this advice, I shall try it.
I haven't gone walking in the night for a few years, it was an experiment 2 years ago :P but yeah, thought that would be a suggestion.
stress: yeah, well I do know that I suffer from stress, but usually it leads to neck tension > tension headache > migraine :( and the cause is school, went 4 weeks of 17 hour shifts around a combine harvester and felt more alive than full time academia.
Just in my last year of school, and its getting to the point where if I stumble, I may just get kicked out, and that would be a waste of a lot of time I think, so need it sorting for the last few months
Can't claim that my diet is healthy, but I have quite a bit of fruit a day, and its not particularly unhealthy.

Yet again, thanks for the advice, I usually go to sleep with a film on, or some background noise to get me to sleep. Last night however, turned everything off, and got to sleep an hour earlier than predicted :)

oh, and the guitar playing being neutral, it doesn't make me more awake or tired, happier :) but kills time.

Anti depressants are a big no no, makes migraines worse, and constant

[JDC]

I try not to drink coffee after 3pm, I'm trying to replace coke with brita filter water with orange

balanced diet like the others said, if you live off carbs your energy levels go up and down like waves (apparently) where as with a proper diet your energy levels are more like a straight line (not sure how accurate this is and which kind of carbs this applies to though, I might be speculating a bit)

I don't really have any other advice for sleep but for waking some people have 2 alarms, the first being music on a low volume to get you out of deep sleep, then 90 minutes later a buzz to wake you from your lighter sleep, never tried it myself but it's meant to work well and stop you wanting to sleep in the day

[willo]

My guess is that this could be related to an anxiety/stress issue. Physically speaking, your body typically needs x amount of hours rest a day. Your body will stay awake if stress chemicals are still floating around in your body, however. I remember when I couldn't sleep as a teenager, I'd get angry at still being awake - needless to say the anger released stress chemicals and kept me awake yet further!

So in the here and now, try relaxing and accpeting that you aren't asleep. Don't be angry or try to resist. Check out Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

There is also a meditative program I came across called the Yoga Nidra, that can replenish the body for approximately 4 hours missed sleep. Might be worth checking out. I never used this one myself, but have had great success with various other hypnotic inductions.

[Will]

Searching for anyone in Herts, Beds and Bucks to start a fight club :P

So you lot reckon its not that bad, just worstened by the teen years?
Dreaming of work, and no more school, can't wait!
well day dreaming really...

[prozacbear]

Do you actually feel tired and run down due to lack of sleep. If not then the simple answer could be that you don’t need as much sleep as you think. Don’t go to bed until you’re really tired, and have a winding down routine before bed, do something relaxing. If you wake in the night and can't get back to sleep then rather than laying there stressing out read for a while until you feel sleepy again.