Insomnia hell

[NicolaC17]

Not sure if this is the best place to post but the sleep thread seems to be about babies. So for the past two months I’ve started suffering from insomnia, what started as a few bad nights of sleep has turned into pure hell of 1-2 hours broken sleep most nights and at best 4-5 hours of broken, very vivid dreams sleep at best. I’ve no real trigger that I can recall, possibly too early for perimenopause (37) and can’t seem to get out of the anxious cycle I am now in where I fear going to bed and lying awake most of the night.
Any tips? I’ve tried the usual, no phones / screens before bed, bath, walk, resting, meditation and recently started magnesium - also tried a few sleeps aids which did absolutely nothing. Please help!

Have you tried the sleep apps, Calm is a good one, I use it every night. Also, you've tried magnesium, I used Mag Enhance, I think. That helped me a lot.

Have you had your thyroid levels checked? I've found over the years that my insomnia is usually an early warning sign that my thyroid levels are low

I went through this for a while after a death in the family. Hypnotherapy and lots of walking helped. I still have the odd blip now, but it's nowhere near as severe

There is a known anxiety which is fear of sleep, or more specially a fear of not sleeping. The problem is that this fear can then cause an adrenaline rush at just the point you should be calming down to sleep.

You have somehow lost the trust that your body and mind can do something so natural as sleeping. So in the end you try and force it, which is again counterintuitive as you then don't sleep.

I would also recommend hypnotherapy. It is the only thing that after suffering on and off for 20 years that has helped me. I now listen to a track every night, and fall asleep. If I do wake up in the night I put my sleep headphones on and listen to it again!

I had 5 sessions with a brilliant therapist and can honestly say that it has changed my life. I don't sleep amazingly every night but now that some of the fear has gone, I don't feel like I'm broken anymore- and I do as a result sleep better!

Sleepful.me is a great website based on CBT therapy for insomnia. Or if you are happy to pay, there is the Sleepio app.

@sunlovingcriminal this is exactly it, fear of not sleeping! I have had one hypnotherapy session with another booked next week so I’ll stick with that and see how I get on.

Thanks for the other suggestions…I’ll take a look at those things.

Magnesium worked for me for a long time but the very early waking has resurfaced recently ( I can wake up from 2 or 3 onwards and not get back to sleep). I’m afraid I discovered that the OTC antihistamines (Tesco own brand; nothing fancy) I have on hand for my outbreaks of menopausal itching also ensure an unbroken night’s sleep so sometimes I take one of those after a run of bad nights just to guarantee a better one. I don’t like doing it but needs must!

Can I ask why you don't like doing this? That's a really mild medication that a lot of people take daily for years to manage allergies etc.

Lack of sleep is terribly bad for your health so I (although not a doctor) would wager that the cost benefit analysis lies firmly in the 'take the meds' option

Not because I’m judging anyone who does take medication for any reason! Just because I feel guilty that I’m taking these rather than trying to address the underlying causes of why I don’t sleep (my lifestyle is reasonably sedentary so I don’t get the physical or mental benefits of exercise; I don’t have good ‘sleep hygiene’ in that I spend WAY too much time scrolling on my phone in the evening; I don’t get out in the fresh air and natural light enough…) So to me, taking my tablets for the purpose of getting to sleep rather than the purpose they were designed for feels like a shortcut which helps me to put off addressing all those things iyswim.