December 05, 2004

• This exercise is taught (I've read) as a counter insomnia exercise. Focus, as hard as you can, on the number 100. Then start counting down, slowly, from 100, all the time trying to stay focussed on the numbers. I've tried it once or twice, and as a way of hamstringing a hyperactive mind, it works for me.
• I AM NOT A DOCTOR, but if it's bad enough, you should see a physician and perhaps get a script for Halcion -- it's short term and can help you to reset your inner clock. Or, if you prefer a non-medicinal remedy, I've tried to read "The Hobbit" on six different occasions, and it got me to sleep within 20 minutes every time. Stupid Tolkien.
• ok... counting backwards from 100 while reading the Halcion days of Tolkein... i'll be back in an hour if it don't work.
• This would be a good question for Christophine.
• prismatic, can you tell us a little more? For example, are you having trouble falling asleep, or staying asleep?
• What never fails for me are books on tape. The narrative distracts me from my internal chatter and the drone of the talking voice lulls. It can't be a book I'm too interested in because I tend to hear the beginnings of cassettes and not the endings. I get a fragmented reading. I favour mysteries. But not ones I love like Nero Wolfe or ones I despise like Kinsey whatsername (those alphabet books like "L is for Lame"). Right now I'm working on an Elizabeth George. Can't tell you what it's about. Puts me right out. Try this. It really works for me.
• Wot ye should try doing is using a very dim bulb in your bedside lanp. Then set about reading one of those catalogs come in the mail. The less taken ye are by the contents of the catalog the quicker this works. If this doesn't do the trick, use a phone directory or a dictionary, preferably in some foreign language in which ye are not proficient. Guaranteed.
• This is boring and sometimes much harder than it sounds but eating a balanced diet high in whole grains, vegetables and fruits, low in sugars, fat and alcohol, and get at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise (earlier in the day is better) sleep comes more easily. Especially if this is done for days or (even better) weeks at a time. Good nutrition and physical health can greatly impact your mental health as well as influence your sleep. Go to bed and wake at the same time every night and morning. Don't try to read, watch tv, mentally sort through your day. Devote this time to relaxing your body completely. Meditate. If you've never tried it before concentrate on your breathing - listen to yourself breath deeply, visualize air filling your lungs, your chest cavity expanding, every cell in you body receiving the oxygen it needs. Then concentrate on how it feels as the air exits your body in reverse. Do it over and over again and when your mind drifts to something else just guide it back to breathing. Counting to 10 as you breath can help too. Masturbate. Meditate while you masturbate, think only of the sensations, make it completely selfish, about you and your body. Don't let your mind drift into how you can't sleep, how you need to get up soon, or whatever else gets in the way of you being relaxed. Sorry so long but good luck.
• I've never suffered from insomnia but I have found that falling asleep comes easiest for me when studying from a textbook of some sort. In fact most of the responses here seem to focus on actively engaging your mind in a task that will tire it. For what it's worth I'd recommend a textbook in a subject that interests you. This way you get tired and learn something at the same time.
• A method recommended for me that works: a big spoonful of honey. Just enough of a natural narcotic to assist the natural progression of sleep, or some such. It does the trick for me.
• Sorry guys but "have a wank" is a clear winner. +1, RaeRae.
• ssshhhh.... look. our little prismatic7 has gone to sleep. what a cutey. get your rest little one.
• NO, WAKE UP AND KNOCK ONE OFF! HURRY!
• I used to suffer terribly from insomnia, badly enough to have picked up a book on the subject. It seemed to me to devolve into silliness, but had two good points. 1. Being sleepy won't kill you. 2. Get up at the same time every day. Every day. Point one I found enlightening and useful, because I used to get so damn worked up with anxiety when I couldn't sleep; worried about the next day. Now I shrug my shoulders and think, "Eh, so I'll sleep well tomorrow." Or the next night. Or the night after that if I have to wait. You get the idea. Point two I've found the most useful way to break any insomnia cycle. It's tough—making yourself get up after three or four hours sleep two or three nights running t'ain't easy, but your body will eventually force you back onto a proper sleep cycle. After that happens, getting to bed at roughly the same time every night gets a lot easier. The trick is to keep the same schedule, or close to it, on the weekends too. Also important is to use the bedroom for sleeping, not other (long-term) activities. It's subtle, but helps your mind associate it with sleep rather than other things. Hope you sleep well soon.
• If your problem is not being able to go to sleep, as opposed to waking up in the middle of the night, try melatonin. It almost always works for me. If you wake up sometime later, though, you can't take more melatonin, and the sleep-inducing effects only last for about a half hour.
• Being sleepy won't kill you. Unless you are driving or operating heavy machinery - do be careful, all. ------- RaeRae gives excellent advice - now I just wish I had the discipline to follow it, as I have also been recently suffering from incomnia, which I never have had before. Stress, worry and a poor lifestyle (bad food, no excercise) are all some of the non-medical problems that contribute. I'm personally not fond of medical solutions before trying non-medical, especially for problems like my insomnia which is primarily non-medical. However, I can testify to the efficacy of davidmsc's Hobbit prescription. I liked the book once I finally got in, but it did take 1/2 a dozen different times, most of which ended with me falling asleep just as the dwarves were incessantly knocking on that round green door. (I 've forgotten most of the plot, but remember the door.)
• I don't know whether or not you have chronic problems, or if this is just a periodic difficulty sleeping. Sleeplessness can be caused by any number of reasons. If you've got a definite, chronic sleep disorder, there are no surefire cures to eliminate it entirely. There is already some good advice in this thread. But here goes with some of the things I've learned in dealing with this over the course of many a sleepless night: - Exercise: Exercising regularly can help you get to sleep. However, do not do it in the evening. Early morning to early afternoon is best. Later than that, it can actually have the effect of making you more awake. - Stress reduction techniques: Particularly if your insomnia is stress-related. Though there are other forms of insomnia with a similar signature, stress-related insomnia is often characterized by the feeling that your mind just won't shut up. Yoga or stretching (either of which can also qualify under the above-mentioned exercise) are good things to try, as is meditation. Even taking a long, relaxing soak in a hot bath can work, if it's something that reduces stress for you. Me, I go cuddle with a cat and let the purring and warm fuzziness work its magic. - Set and maintain a routine: Go to bed at the same time every night. Get up at the same time every day, whether it's a workday or a weekend. Have a set way you go about getting to bed every night, and do it the same way every time. When your body starts preparing for sleep is partially controlled by the circadian rhythms, and they can, to some extent, be trained to take cues from your daily routine. If you establish a definite pattern, and keep to that pattern every night, they will kick in and start preparing your body and mind for sleep. - Eat or drink something laden with tryptophan at dinner: After all, it's a contributor toward feeling tired after a holiday turkey dinner. Milk also has tryptophan. Additionally, complex carbohydrates can help you sleep. They are harder to digest, so blood and energy are diverted toward digestion, making you more tired and more able to fall asleep.
• (continued, since I managed to exceed comment length. Sorry this is so long. What can I say, I'm wordy.) - If you have chronic sleep problems, spend no more than an hour to hour and a half in bed and unable to sleep at a time: Otherwise you train yourself that your bed is where you don't sleep, and you'll be awake as soon as you're in bed. If you don't ramp down into sleep within an hour to hour and a half, get up and do something else for half an hour, and then try again. If you've already acquired the training (called Learned or Acquired Insomnia) then trying to get to sleep somewhere else can work. I've often been able to fall asleep and sleep quite well on my couch when I can't fall asleep in my bed. I've a friend with the same problem, and what works for her is to build a nest on the floor and sleep there. - If it's chronic, get yourself to a doctor: They'll do a sleep study, and will have some techniques to help with specific sleep disorders. Two of mine, for example, benefit from a light box (currently outside my price range, but someday...) that shines light at a particular level (don't recall now how many lumens) toward the face. An hour with that every morning at the same time helps to forcefully reset the circadian rhythms and make it easier to fall asleep at night. Or there's sleep apnea, which can be helped with a special breathing mask. There are others, those are just examples off the top of my head. - If it's chronic, do not take medication: Either over the counter or prescription medications are bad in the long run for chronic sleep disorders. They are useful if sleeplessness is periodic, but can be habit-forming if it's long-term and often. There is also a degree of training of the circadian rhythms and subconscious involved when taking medication for chronic sleep problems. You get the Pavolovian training that you need this in order to sleep, so when you go off of them in order to prevent it from becoming a habit, your sleeplessness comes back ten times worse. Drugs also become less effective over the long term if the problem is chronic. So they stop helping you sleep, but yet when you come off of them because of that, you still get the backlash of increased problems getting to sleep. Do not join me in the ten-days-no-sleep club. It's not fun. - Find a willing partner for a bit of fun: Sex, after all, makes many people sleepy enough to just drop off immediately after. Masturbation can also work for some. Unless you're one of the unlucky few that has this fall under the "exercise immediately before sleep wakes you up" rule. Most of the people I know don't run into this issue. I do. Go figure. - Try turning on some music at a very low volume: The TV also works. If your mind is refusing to slow down and your thoughts are keeping you awake, giving something for your mind to focus on can help. If, like me, you have a problem focusing on a particular thing in your own head in order to stop your mind from racing, something you don't have to see can provide the focus instead. Music or the TV when just barely within your hearing while you are in your bed and wide awake will be slightly louder once the lights are off and your eyes are closed. For me, at least, not enough louder that it will prevent sleep, and my mind stops babbling ceaselessly with that background noise to occupy it. A white noise generator could also work. I hope at least some of this is useful to you.
• I design and furnish a house. I decide on the location first. Beach? Cliffside? Highrise? On a big hill? What, exactly do I see looking out the windows? Then, what kind of house. How many rooms? One level or multiple levels? Loft-style? What kind of purpose-built rooms are there? Workshop? Dance studio? What colour are each of these rooms? And what, exactly, are in these rooms? Try and visualise the objects in as great a detail as you can, and seen from different angles. What kind of lighting will you have? Basically, your brain gets reaaaalllly tired of trying to hold the picture of all this stuff at once, and ostriches will start strolling through your kitchen with the amazing blue and green tile backsplash, and maybe your lighting will have acquired owls...and off to sleep you go.
• RaeRae and douggles are right on. Are you depressed or worried about anything? Or maybe you need a new mattress and/or pillow. If the insomnia lasts more than a few weeks, please see your doctor. When I was in school I had an anxiety-related bout that lasted almost two months. I wasn't getting enough REM sleep and went bonkers, hallucinations and everything. A few days of not sleeping won't hurt, but after awhile your clock can get so messed up that it simply won't reset. Definitely try the audio books. Mister shinything set up an old laptop on our bedside table and we use it as an mp3 player. We both sleep much better when we listen to a story while drifting off. Hope the insomnia goes away very soon.
• I really appreciate this thread as well. Lately I've been going through my days completely exhausted, only to find myself too wired and stressed out to sleep once I hit the bed at night. Thanks, boys and girls, I'll try these out.
• hello, good morning. yes, Zanshin is right - i did get some sleep. not much, but some. Now that I'm a little more clear-headed, I suppose I should give more detail: I've never slept overly well. I get between 4 and 6 hours a night unless I'm sick or otherwise broken. Once I am asleep, I sleep pretty soundly (unless serious toilet breaks are demanded) - it's getting there that's the trouble. I know that 4 to 6 hours is pretty mild in the realm of sleep disorders/disruptions. But I'm a bit sick of feeling like gunk every morning, being late to work every day coz i needed another few minutes snooze time, and so on. I'm about to start a new job (on the 20th) and don't want to stagger in like i had a night on the town every morning. I am anxious about several things - from work pressures to (lack of) relationship woes to money to some... er... ex-girlfriend issues. I have been on anti-depressants in the last 12 months (briefly - more harm than good for this monkey), and after that i was seeing a shrink. i was taking between 200mg and 400mg (possibly micrograms rather than milligrams, i don't recall) of valerian extract a night, but i've a) run out; and b) been doing that for 4 months anyway and i'm not sure that it's a good idea! i, uh... execute a manual override frequently, and while 'hey baby, wanna help me sleep?' has potential as a pick-up line in theory, the practicality is very different. I've not had any sort of sex in a good five months, and don't appear to be getting any soon (i work for the government. 'hiring' someone for sleep-activation research is out of the question on my salary!) (will continue...)
• per Christophine's excellent list - i'm definitely going to try at least some, but would like to mention some things in relation to it: the problem, really, is my mind racing. i got into the habit at some point of thinking things through at night, in bed. it is the only time no-one can see my face, hear me telling myself off, watch me doing my private things. i'm beginning to see that this is a problem. i try to slow things down by putting on some ambient music, but being a bit of a muso (and very much a music obsessive) i get interested in how it's being done and wake myself up! Now, a further question: What constitutes 'chronic' in this case?
• I'd recomend against reading before falling asleep as you'll train yourself to fall asleep whenever you read. unless you don't like reading for fun then go ahead knock yourself out
• Actually, I have the opposite experience with reading before sleeping - I've done it since I was eight, but lately, it just means I get into the book, and next thing I know it's 5 or 6 am. Oops.
• primsatic7: Do you finally fall asleep around the same time every night, even if that time is far later than you'd like it to be? When you don't have to be up at a certain time and just let yourself go and sleep, do you get a full sleep rather than 4 to 6 hours? It's hard to judge, but it sounds like you might have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Essentially, with DSPS the circadian rhythms are off. Onset can be as early as infancy, but often doesn't show up until adolescence. Your natural rhythm is reversed from what's considered normal, so you don't tend to fall asleep until very late or early in the morning, and sleep through most or all of the day. There is no permanent solution for it, but it is one of the sleep disorders that responds well to the light box. Get a sleep study done. A temporary reset is chronotherapy. DSPS resists going to sleep earlier. So instead, you go to sleep two hours later every day until you are getting to sleep at the time you'd like to be sleeping. For a while, you'll be able to get enough sleep. The problem is that the circadian rhythms will eventually move the time you get to sleep forward again eventually, and you'll have to do the chronotherapy over again. If, on the other hand, you find that you get tired enough to sleep later every night without forcing the situation through chronotherapy, you might have Non-24 Hour Sleep/Wake Phase Syndrome. Essentially, you operate on something longer than the 24-hour day. The light box can help with this one, too, though it's not as effective as it is with DSPS. Based on the information you've given so far, those are my best guesses. Either way, pinning it down with a sleep study so you can get the proper therapies is a must.
• Or, I could check preview before posting and see that there's more information. *sigh*
• Rule of thumb on sleep disorders: Transit insomnia is up to several nights of poor sleep triggered by the excitement or stress caused by the anticipation of an important event. Short-term insomnia is triggered by periods of extreme stress at home or work, and lasts up to two or three weeks. Chronic insomnia is a pattern of recurring sleeplessness or difficulty getting/staying asleep over a period of months or years and can have various triggers, or even lack an obvious trigger.
• If you are worrying about things, try taking a half hour before going to bed and diagramming your troubles. Make pro and con lists, 1 year plans, write a list of goals with sublists as to how to achieve those goals. Whatever makes you think about your worries in a concrete way. This gets the crap keeping you awake out of your brain and on paper, instead of it floating around aimlessly in your head, causing anxiety, and not really doing much more than keeping you awake. Bonus - after a half hour of flow charts and lists you will be bored spitless of the topic, and it'll be easier to think about sleepier stuff.
• I write. Seriously. I always have stuff on the brain, and it nearly always makes me grow tired. Plus you get your thoughts out on paper. Doubleplusgood.
• Thinking can become a bad habit. The brain is a tool of the body and because it is capable of amazing things we tend to over-value it in relation to other organs - thinking of the brain as the most important organ. But it is but one part of a greater system. When you find yourself ruminating about whatever.... that's when thinking is not good for you. Try to break the habit of thinking all the time. Of course we need to plan and consider actions in life, but often we don't need to think at all: like when it's time to sleep. Immersing yourself in the current moment is the easiest way to try and stop thinking so much. For instance if you're washing dishes, think only of the act of washing the dishes: how the water feels, what soap looks like, the sounds... etc. The most banal chore can become peaceful. When you're trying to sleep, think about the current time only: how the covers are warm, how nice it feels to lie down, or every sound you hear if you have the ambient music on...when your mind drifts and you start to think of people or situations just go back to to current moment. It's hard at first but becomes easier. Soon you'll notice you're not thinking about any problems of your day, goals or things you must get done. All that stuff has it's place during the day. The goal of sleep is for your body to rest. If you are laying still and are moderately relaxed your heart rate will slow, you body will begin to take advantage of this time even if you are not completely asleep.
• Curious, George questions are one of the greatest things about MoFi. You guys are all so knowledgeable and helpful-icious! Yay! Loveable squeezy monkey love to all. and nanars.
• I despise like Kinsey whatsername (those alphabet books like "L is for Lame") hee hee--me too, A is for "All of 'em Are Alike" Somehow this just demands a tag: Monkeyfilter: using a very dim bulb in your bedside lanp Ah, P-7, if it takes loveable squeezy monkey love to put you to sleep, then babes, just give me a call. I'll be wearing my yellow undies with matching banana slippers and will whisper sweet dirty monkey nothings into your ear until you finally drift off from boredom.
• Hey I want to sign up for sweet dirty monkey nothings in my ear too. That would be soooo nice. Good night all.
• Monkeyfilter: Sweet dirty monkey nothings
• Good night everyone. Sleep tight. Don't let the bed apes bite.
• I used to have trouble sleeping, but my problem was that my sleep patterns had changed - I was going to bed and trying to sleep when I wasn't tired. I decided, screw it, I'm staying up until I *feel* tired, and damn the next morning. Eventually I stabilized at 1-1:30 a.m. for a bedtime, and now I go to bed tired, fall asleep almost immediately, and sleep like a stone. Little things that helped, though, before: late night basic cable (gotta be basic, if you have Cinemax, there's always something interesting on late, you want boring TV); a glass or two of stout or port, according to taste; quietness; and the sheer volume and somnolent tenacity of the Norton Anthology of English Literature.
• Since I went to the trouble of registering in order to mete out my wonderful advice, I shall do so, despite the fact that Raoul beat me to the punch. Several years ago I suffered through several months of insomnia to the point where I could fall asleep during the day sitting straight up on a hard-backed chair. I would sleep like that for five minutes and that would be all she wrote when beddie bye time came. The situation became much less than cute when I began falling asleep at the wheel at stoplights. Enough of my travails. As Raoul so cogently noted, my salvation (as his) was books on tape (or cd). Once I plugged in the earphones (which I still do today..its become a crutch, just like my daughter's blankie) a little while later I was off to la la land. Mosey down to your local library and pick up a couple of audio books. Don't go out and buy them, they are way too expensive and once you've listened to them, poof, they're of no value. Good luck.
• Forty Winks: Science and Sleep
• From my own experience I know that depression can quite often lead to sleep disorders. I know the common belief is that depression leads to sleeping lots but it can also lead to problems sleeping. At least that's the case for me.
• Well, problems sleeping is a symptom of depression. Not quite the same thing.
• I think that depression and sleep disorders may be intimately related, but in more of a two-way street sort of dynamic. I find for myself, I cannot extricate them, nor decide which is chicken and which is egg. I have had sleep problems/nightmares etc. since I was a small child, and identifiable depression since puberty. also I have observed what I would consider to be a pattern in other family members of sleep problems and depression....brain chemistry issues are highly relevant in both situations (ie, melatonin is sleep cycle regulator and precursor to serotonin, the level of which effects ones "happiness" greatly...) interesting stuff.
• I had an overnight sleep study last night. We'll see how it goes. Still cleaning that goopy EEG gel out of my hair.
• I will be very curious to hear the results TUM!