Tips for helping with insomnia that really help

[TellySavalashairbrush]

I’ve had insomnia for years , mainly an issue with waking up around 3am and laying there worrying about anything and everything until
6am and then having to get up for work. GP gave me pherneghan tablets which does help but the horrible headaches it gives me and the risk of developing dementia worry me a lot. Does anyone have any tips/advice that has worked for them?

I've had terrible insomnia my whole life, I really struggle to shut my brain down, and yes I often wake in the early hours and then can't get back to sleep.

I have managed to get it more under control, although I will say I work from home flexibly now, which has helped a lot because the stress of having to get up early for the office, and before that school, was too much. I was always shattered. I'm a night owl.

What works for me now is melatonin and magnesium every evening, about an hour before going to bed. Thankfully melatonin is non-subscription where I live. You can buy it in the supermarket.

I also take 50mg of trazodone, which knocks me right out, and doesn't build a tolerance or an addiction like the benzos and zopis. Occasionally, if I really need a good night's sleep, I'll take 100mg and also an antihistamine🤐

To shut my brain down I watch easy TV, or listen to podcasts or familiar audiobooks (Just William stories read by Martin Jarvis are the best). Sometimes just audio will not be enough to distract my brain, and I have to have the visual stimulation of TV as well, but I have the screen dimmed as low as possible, and on the warm tone setting.

If I wake up in the early hours, I put the podcasts or TV back on until my brain shuts down again. Doesn't always work, but it's better than it used to be.

Exercise is good, but only much earlier in the day. I do sleep much better when I'm in a good routine with exercise and doing at least an hour a day, but I am awful at sticking to routines. I tend to go in phases instead. It's very frustrating.

Im a terrible sleeper but counting back from 10,000 often helps when I wake up.

Sominex works for me, although it is supposed to be for short term insomnia. I do take it every night but have to circulate my on line pharmacy orders as they don’t let you have more than so many packs in so many months (not condoning or recommending this btw)

Having lived with 25 years of chronic insomnia to have finally found an otc option that works for me I’m comfortable with my slight manipulation of the rules 🤣

Oh, I've also set up the whole house with smart bulbs, and created automations that gradually make the lights dimmer and warmer throughout the evening, until it's basically the same as candlelight. This helps stimulate melatonin. I've also put them in the bathroom, so when I get up in the night to pee I'm not making my brain think it's daytime again. My bedside lamps have the dimmest, yellowest bulbs I could find in them.

Hear me out: sleep masks!
I can’t open my eyes, so it’s like: resistance is futile, go to sleep. Love it. With I tried years ago.

I've started taking magnesium and hour before bed and I'm finding it much easier to go to sleep. I get mind from Nutri Geeks.

I've had difficulty going to sleep since childhood.

Calm app helps me not worry about sleeping. I’m on oral progresterone with my mirena as part of HRT and that really seems to help

I'm the same, ping wide awake between 2.30am and 4am and that's it until 6am, when I can sleep easily. I do get some success from a snoozeband and audio book and telling myself I MUST NOT fall asleep, which seems to make me actually fall asleep.

no phone in
the bedroom white noise on. Magnesium tablets. And I totally stopped caffeine.

Magnesium 4 in 1 capsules, going onto continuous HRT (progesterone every night at bedtime) and yoga nidra tracks have helped me. Brown noise if I wake and am overthinking. I still have the odd bad night but overall much better.

I take 2 magnesium before bed which stopped the 3am wake up feeling quite so horrible. Doesn't stop it but I no longer have the 3am anxiety. I have found that if I lie in bed I don't get back to sleep but if I go to the sofa and lay leaning sideways against the back, kind of propped up, I can be back asleep in 20 minutes. Don't know how/why it works but it does and I've had insomnia for 14 years.

Someone on here suggested the podcast ‘nothing much happens’ (I just use the website). She is amazing, my brain is trained now so that I rarely hear much of the story. Short, relaxing stories that she tells twice, and you drift off. It’s quiet enough so the oh doesn’t hear, I put it under my pillow. She even does the adverts herself, so they’re part of the relaxation; or you can pay a bit for premium. No more problems sleeping!

I find reading helps me get sleepy , even at 3am as it distracts from the worries, I read by the light of my phone at 3 so as not to disturb DH. Then put on a gentle audiobook - nature,self help -not anything which draws you in and don’t worry as you are at least resting and relaxed.

Melatonin never worked for me but HRT does. But I take seperated and progesterone and gel

phenergan also works but I take it very sparingly

you have literally explained exactly what I do and it really works 90% time . Sometimes I go with countries,names,cities etc .

It's easy to buy online. Piping Rock is a good site. It works very well. Also Kirkland's Sleep Aid works, almost too well!

I play podcasts on a timer. Help me drift off to sleep and if I wake up I put it back on and eventually drift off again. I also find keeping a note book handy helps so if I wake up and my to do list is going round on a loop in my head or I think of something I need to do I write it down and then I can forget about it until the morning. I find that helps as well.

I've always been a very light sleeper and perimenopause ruined my sleep in the beginning. Things that help me:

• Red lights at night. This was a game changer. All our night lights and reading lamps are red, it helps naturally trigger melatonin.
• No screens of any kind at least two hours before bed and if you can't avoid it use a blue light filter.
• Get some natural light outside at dawn and dusk. I realise that's hard for those of you in winter (Australian here) but I try to go for walks at those times if I can.
• Plenty of exercise earlier in the day.
• Magnesium glycinate before bed and ashwaganda.
• White noise
• No caffeine at all
• Wearing socks to bed (!) It's so hot here I would never have tried this, but I read a study on it and I was desperate and weirdly it actually does help.

(Gardeners question time/desert island discs or any other Radio 4 show) podcast played on bbc sounds app (plays one episode after the next - there’s 15 years worth with soundcore A20 sleep buds. I wake up and I listen to something vaguely interesting - no story, not dramatic. I can’t go a night without earbuds - the hours awake are torturous without them.

I think you have to work throughout the day to prepare for night.

Eat sleepy foods (banana, chicken), don't eat after 7pm, tail off drinking liquids from 6pm, no alcohol, some fresh air in the day, get daylight on your face mid afternoon, learn to meditate and do that mid evening, meditate when you go to bed (maybe use an app), try box breathing. Valerian tea before bed. No TV, phone etc from 9pm. Bed same time every night, up same time every morning.

Funnily enough, there's no evidence that magnesium helps sleep. Melatonin does, but only enhances the natural rhythm so will only really work if you've done the day prep.

HRT

They don't seem to have melatonin on Piping Rock any more.

I usually get mine abroad.

Are you on any other medication? After speaking with the consultant at the sleep clinic, it turned out the one of my medications was known for disrupting sleep. I switched meds and my insomnia improved dramatically.

For me what worked was making myself understand that resting was as good as sleeping. So being calm and in bed is fine and it really doesn’t matter if I’m asleep or not. As long as I’m cosy, in my pyjamas, warm and relaxed, being actually asleep doesn’t matter. Resting does.

Not really except that, having lived with constant insomnia my whole life, taking a lot of sleeping pills and other psych meds for it, I did once recently have a 3 month period, med free, where I slept at 9/ 10 pm and woke at 6/7 am. It was wonderful, and at least I now know it's possible for me. I thought my brain was just broken.