Insomnia...someone help!

[LookWhosInTheRejectBin]

Does anyone have any tips for me?

For the past month or so, I go to bed around 11 feeling really tired but then just lie there unable to nod off until about 3am, sometimes later. It's like my brain won't switch off.

I'm hoping I don't have to resort to sleeping tablets, but my under eyes are so dark they look bruised! I'm at my wits end.

I'm in a completely blacked out room, no light or distraction at all. I do suffer depression, but not taking medication for it, so don't know if this is a factor.

If anyone has any useful advise I'd really appreciate it. Thank you :)

A few nights. It helps greatly with resetting the body clock.

Can I ask, are you in peri menopause?
My sleep went to hell and got so bad I thought I was losing my mind

What worked for me was no coffee in the afternoon, cutting my alcohol right down and drinking lots of water. Then using meditation apps every day including an evening sleep meditation.
Taking exercise in the morning helps too
Also getting up if I wake after about 5. If I tried to get back to sleep at that time I’d take ages then go into a horrible deep sleep that I couldn’t snap out of when I was supposed to get up
Also cut my screen time - that helped hugely too

Mine is menopause related. I never used to have a problem sleeping.

I am getting used to functioning on 3-4 hours kip. It's my normal now. Every few weeks I crash and sleep for 16 hours straight.

I suffer from insomnia, it's part of ME/CFS & probable autism ( I've got an assessment appointment) I have been using Phenergan Night Tablets, less than a fiver OTC for 14, they seem to be working up to now.

How long have you been taking those pills, Nat6999?

I had a breakdown a few years ago. Horrendous anxiety and depression. What resulted was my body struggling to get to sleep for 5 hours (much like yourself) and when I did get sleep I was dreaming about the stuff that made me anxious.

The doc originally gave me zopiclone. Amazing tablets. But they stopped working within a few days. The doc said basically that because the reason for my insomnia was psychological, that my only cure was psychological too.

You could resort to just tablets (I personally wouldn't recommend that) or you could work on the mental side too. Here's what I had to do to get back into a sleep routine:

• I had counselling

• no screens on 2 hours before bed

• read a book before bed

• practice whole body muscle relaxing - I really can't recommend this enough especially if you get those horrible insomnia tingles I got

• get a few homeopathic massages

• no coffee after 1pm

• meditate

• lots of self care

• valerian tea - has drowsy warnings on the box. It smells like wet dog but tastes like plants. I didnt mind it. It seemed to help.

• white noise -like nature noises. I love listening to rain so I got an app that does it. I use it with my DS now. It's called White Noise or Relaxio.

Weirdly, the thing that helped my insomnia was a fitness watch thing. I was utterly convinced I wasn't sleeping (I could describe every moment of the night that passed), but seeing my sleep tracked (or at least my heart rate slowing enough to register as 'sleep') was such a relief, it broke the cycle.

I use yoga nidra occasionally, there a lots of different versions, I like this one www.doyogawithme.com/content/yoga-nidra-sleep. I play it a low volume when ready for sleep & fall asleep before it finishes. My Yoga teacher recommended this
www.yoganidranetwork.org/mp3/sleep-well-total-yoga-nidra

These may be useful too: slumber.fm/ Slumber – Stories And Meditations for Sleep, and ASMR Soundscapes.

National Sleep Foundation www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-disorders/insomnia

Calm Moment: Home of Project Calm and In The Moment
www.calmmoment.com/wellbeing/10-of-the-best-sleep-apps-to-help-with-insomnia-for-iphones-and-android-2/

Slumber: Fall Asleep, Insomnia on the App Store - iTunes - Apple
Free App apps.apple.com/us/app/slumber-fall-asleep-insomnia/id1109543953

I recently got over awful insomnia using CBT via NHS funded website cakes Sleep Station. Have a Google. I got my GP to refer me. It gives you a reset and tools to keep you going. Really worked for me. No side effects and you are in control.

blue sominex is the best over the counter. I like night nurse too

Also melatonin or 5htp

The half life of coffee is 6 hours. So what you drink through the day is still with you in the evening.
A second thing is to get at least 4 minutes of sunlight on your face first thing in the morning to set your bodyclock.
Third thing is don't compare yourself to others. Just because your partner needs 8 ours a night and gets at least that -we are all individual and different, you might live to a hundred on 5 hours.

Sleepstation was developed as commercial product by Dr. Kirstie Anderson.
The programme heavily relies on "Sleep Restriction" Better described as Performance Sleep..
Basically, they measure success not as more sleep but more time spent asleep when you're in bed. Even if that's barely any time at all.

The easy way to achieve their measure of success is to barely let yourself go to bed, barely allow any time there, so all the time you're there you're exhausted and can't help but be asleep. Then the programme can claim you've got "90% sleep efficiency!" It might only be 2 hours of sleep a night, but "90% efficiency!" is their success headline.

You can try the same CBT+Sleep Restriction approach for free without costing NHS money or contacting your GP by using the Sleepio app. The entire approach assumes that you're full of some kind of angst which is stopping you from sleeping; and if you aren't full of that angst already, their programme is sure to induce it.

I hate sleep restriction because it's high pressure & anxiety inducing strategy. Great way to be labeled a failure. Nonetheless, very popular with so-called sleep gurus.

Fellow (maintenance) insomniac checking in. A drowsy antihistamine helps me when I wake at 2 and know I’m not getting back to sleep naturally. Also have been trying cbd oil for the last week and I think it might be making a difference. I’m def waking less frequently and I actually slept through from midnight to seven earlier this week (which I’ve not managed to do for well over five years) - I felt like a new woman!

The sleep restriction programme Sleepio is much easier to do in the summer, if you are going to try it. Getting up when you wake early is much easier to do when it's light than on cold dark winter mornings.

Insomnia is torture

I developed it when I had a high-needs baby who didn't sleep. Only recovered fully 4 years later. What worked for me was the book The Effortless Sleep Method by Sasha Stephens.

She's really bossy! She made me realise that the only thing keeping me awake was fear or not sleeping/being knackered the next day. Vicious cycle. I learned that adrenaline can override sleep no matter how exhausted you are.

In my case, the exercise/screens before bed/warm bath/milky drink before bed stuff turned out to be irrelevant, or even harmful because focusing on that only increased my panic that I wouldn't sleep. Caffeine intake was relevant though.

But mainly I just had to ride it out until ds slept through and my anxiety subsided. Wish in retrospect I'd handed him over to babysitters more often, but was anxious they'd be impatient with him. I'm wittering on now so will stop. Best of luck