If you’ve ever suffered with no being able to sleep well, what finally worked for you?

[GingerKittenTail]

what was it that actually helped you

citalopram, described for anxiety but literally worked wonders for my insomnia.

Cold room with good quality bedding (feather pillows & duvet, silk pillowcases, feather mattress topper) - bed as close to being a 5 star hotel bed as possible (actually based on Sofitels, I love their beds!) I make my bed feel as special as possible!

Dimmed lights / candles in the evening rather than bright lighting

Wind down with some reading 30 mins before bed

Supplement of 400mg elemental magnesium before bed, sometimes with an anti-histamine too or occasionally 10mg melatonin (but I prefer to save this for when I have actual jetlag - if you take it for too long, your body gets used to it and it's less effective). I used to take amitriptyline (as migraine prevention but it helped with sleep for a few weeks until I got used to the dose) but came off it on my consultant's advice.

Silk eye mask (from Drowsy)

Usually something quietly playing on YouTube on my tablet (tucked away under a pillow), either rainfall or The Diary of CEO.

Separate bedrooms

Wine

All the usual sleep hygiene stuff + HRT

Started taking high strength good quality CBD oil for other reasons and found it excellent for sleep issues too.

Giving up alcohol and losing weight. Pretty sure I have sleep apnoea when I am too heavy (as I am right now)

HRT and cutting back on the booze.

Magnesium magnesium magnesium

Me too!

Plus weighted blanket, boring stories on bbc sounds, exercise, getting up early, o caffeine after 12

Custom made ear plugs from Specsavers, Lloyds chemist own brand sleep aid tablets ( drowsy antihistamine) and podcasts on my phone ! Although I have to take my earplugs out for them I’m lulled back to sleep !

Giving up caffeine. Totally.

HRT.

Omg, ear plugs! How could I forget - best thing ever produced.

No alcohol
No caffeine after 3pm
Being as active as possible during the day
Warm milk before bed

Complete removal of caffeine from my diet, my Shakti mat and breathing/mindfulness techniques.
Still wake multiple times a night but at least I can drop off rather than waiting until the small hours.
It's amazig how you can sleep on a mat covered in spikes, it seems counterintuitive but I love mine. I have to remember to set an alarm to wake me up after 20minutes, drag it out from under me and doze off.

nothing yet ... !
Have tried most of these to no great improvement

No caffeine after 3pm
Cool bedroom (16°c is optimum for me, possibly cooler)
Heavy duvet and blanket (or weighted blanket)
V shaped pillow
No screens in bed at all

Life long insomniac:

1. Learning to deep relax (Use Yoga Nidra sessions free on YouTube) easy to learn, do every night until can do it throughout the day just thinking about it.
2. Acupuncture
3. Exercise
4. Less alcohol
5. Accepting sometimes I will be awake and just reading. Almost always get a bit of sleep when not fretting (this was a game changer).

Antihistamine

The 'Calm' app. Particularly the sleep stories read by Jerome Flynn.

Headphones and ‘lets read’ channel playing on YouTube

I cut out caffeine completely after learning about a heart issue I had, I had honestly never thought caffeine affected me as I had always had it all day long, even before my sleep issues started. But cutting it out totally has helped me sleep so much better.

I also need a warm bed but a cool room, summer is harder for me to sleep in, although on the worst days I put white noise on my phone or the Alexa which helps. Thunderstorms or plane cabin sounds seem to work best for me for some reason.

Kirkland sleep aid
Accepting it. Occasionally I split sleep so 4.30pm - 7pm then midnight onwards. I sleep better that way
Telling myself that just being in bed is restful and I don't need to worry about sleeping

Stopping almost all caffeine and then re-introducing one morning coffee and tea after that- no caffeine after midday, sadly.

Also melatonin (small dose) during bad episodes.

I also loved the calm app. But when my mum was dying I put the sleep stories on in case she could still hear, and I can't listen to any of them now
If anyone recommends any other sleep story apps I would love to try them