How to be able to fall asleep at 10 or 11 (instead of still being wide awake at 3am!)

[LettuceBeFree]

Hi,
I've always been one of those people who's had greater difficulty in feeling sleepy at the "right" time i.e. 9 to 11pm. Instead, I am wide awake and would literally force myself to go to sleep at midnight yet struggle to get up at 7am and feel sleepy between 2 to 5pm :( despite waking up early, never having drunk coffee, not eating much or any sugar in evenings, even tried exercising during the day but that still doesn't make me sleepy at night (only makes getting up in the morning even harder!)

Any tips/supplements. I do envy those who get the urge to go to bed at 9 or 10pm-ish.. I never ever have felt it. Even if I go to bed, I'll be lying there awake for over 30 minutes.

low dose anti-psychotic medication (instant release formulation) works a treat!

perhaps more heavy-duty than whale song and hot milk or whatever suggestions you might have been expecting. depends how badly you need the sleep...

Following with interest, as it takes me ages to get to sleep and recently I've been sleeping less and less ending up with about 2 hours last night. I think the short amount of sleep may be related to the menopause (I've always taken ages to fall asleep).

I'm going to cover myself with lavender tonight as that works sometimes (body oil by ThisWorks, also their pillow spray is lovely).

But if you go to bed at 10pm and lay there for 30 mins then you'll be asleep by 10.30?

also youtube is stacked full of soporific documentaries. if you can make it through an hour and a half of the epic of gilgamesh or a panel discussion on string theory then you have a problem...

I go to bed at 11 and could probably fall asleep then if I wanted to but I tend to read and go to sleep at midnight. I'm ok on 7 hours though - how much sleep do you need to not get tired in the day?

I used to watch episodes of Frasier and literally fall asleep after five minutes. There must be something soporific about Kelsey Grammer's voice, so soothing?

I found it easier after I forced myself to get up at 6am to go running. Having enough exercise and a longer day helped.

However the most helpful was I now put on the radio on sleep mode to turn off after 90mins. So if the radio is on I know it hasn't got to 11:30 yet. I don't need to disturb myself to check the time.