Help me sleep (not baby related)

[helpsleep]

For as long as I remember I've struggled with sleep. I can’t switch off a lot of the time, or I just feel so much pressure to sleep that it has the opposite effect. Then because I’m tired, I worry about things that aren’t actually that bad, but then that keeps me awake.

It's affecting my mental/physical health and stops me enjoying days with my DD and DH. I'm snappy and irritable a lot of the time.

I need help! Any advice? What has worked for people? Tablets/hypnotherapy/consultants?

I've tried no technology/alcohol/more exercise/sleeping in a different room etc.. it makes no difference.

I find I need to keep my head current so listening to music or when I've really struggled I've used the headspace app for some mindfulness... there's usually a free trial available if that's something you haven't tried?

Calm app.

Some nice guided meditation relevant to sleep.

I suffer from the same and have recently started listing to a podcast when trying to fall asleep called “Sleep with me” - it’s a guy with a really boring voice who tells a long boring story designed to help you fall asleep. It totally stops my mind racing and am usually fast asleep by the time it finishes!

Thank you all and sorry for the delay. I have actually used all these apps before and have recently been trying the Calm app again. I still just find it so hard to switch off and focus on the apps.. but will keep trying!

Running! Especially now, I find I'm in a better mood once I've run and sleep better at night too.

How much caffeine do you drink during the day? I used to drink several teas during the day including one around 8pm and whilst I could get to sleep I had the most vivid dreams every night and felt so tired in the morning. My husband drank a lot of coffee at work and he really struggled to switch off at night and would be awake for hours with his mind racing unable to switch off too. We both cut back on caffeine, not having any after midday, and it made such a difference to us that we drink barely any caffeine at all now, perhaps just one caffeinated drink in the morning (we do drink decaf tea and coffee which do have small traces of caffeine in them but nothing like regular amounts). I'm sure I read somewhere that caffeine has a half-life of around 4-6 hours, so it can take your body around 4-6 hours to get rid of half the caffeine in your system, so when I worked out how much I was drinking in a day I could see it was just building up over the day faster than my body could process it. Come night time I was tired but my mind was still racing and I'm sure this was why I had such crazy vivid dreams.

Obviously if you don't drink caffeine then this isn't applicable...